


Retribution

by Oofshesaid



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death Threats, F/M, Female Anti-Hero, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Torture, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oofshesaid/pseuds/Oofshesaid
Summary: Alexandria is her last chance at something resembling a normal life, but nothing is ever that simple. Wendy’s need to reopen old wounds has her putting more than just herself in danger, and guilt can’t be ignored forever.❊twd; daryl dixonseasons 6 - 7
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Begun: summer of 2019
> 
> Thanks for giving my story a chance, I hope you stick around :)

_"Why did I think back then, that happiness was always just ahead in the future, when I would be an adult, able to make my own decisions, go my own way, be my own person? Why had it seemed that being a child was never enough?"_

— V.C. Andrews,Flowers in the attic


	2. ONE

Everything about this feels wrong. We had made a deal, to help each other and get ourselves out before things got any worse. But I had never agreed to this.   
I stared down at the man in front of me, unconscious, sleeping off the injury that Dwight had inflicted on him the day prior. The sun was beginning to rise now, and slowly the heat would become too much to handle. We had to leave soon. With no leaves on the charred trees surrounding us, there was no shelter from the unforgiving sun and it was sure to be another long, frustrating day of travel. And now we had him as well.

He was deeply tanned from the countless hours of exposure to the sun, and muscular also, though that came as no surprise. When we had first seen him, he was carrying a crossbow and those things aren’t typically light weight. His arms were evidence of the labor he endured from carrying it around with him, shown off by the sleeveless shirt he wore. Now though, his weapon is zipped up tight in the bag, along with Tina’s insulin. I glanced behind me, checking that Sherry and Tina weren’t watching me. They weren’t, they were waiting for Dwight to return, to give them the all clear that we could continue with our journey. Slowly, I unfolded my arms and knelt down besides our hostage, watching him closely for any signs of movement.

Nothing but his shallow, sleepy breathing.

I reached for his arm and turned it over carefully, checking the patch I had placed over his wound. It hadn’t bled through. That was always a good sign. This injury hadn’t come from us, it looked to me as though he had fallen off of something and scraped his arm badly. The skin was ripped to shreds, angry and inflamed. There could be something in it, but I couldn’t tell. I had barely had the chance to clean it roughly with the last of my water and stick a patch over it before Dwight had noticed me. He had told me before not to bother, that he wasn’t worth wasting our limited resources on. Usually I would have agreed, but he was the one who wanted to use this guy to trade, should the opportunity arise. If that was ever going to be a possibility, he needed to be unharmed.

I felt no pity for this man. He had chosen his side, chosen to put his life in the hands of someone else and allow them to dictate his decisions for him. No, pity was not even close to what I felt for him. But I understood it better than I would have liked to admit. None of that means that I believe this is the right play. I think it’s probably the worst decision Dwight has ever made, actually. He had found us, there was no denying that, and we couldn’t have just run because he would have simply chased us. There was nowhere to hide. He was only one, and we took the opportunity to get to him before he could get to us. Even if I didn’t want to kill him, this was not our only option.

“Hey!” I turn my head and see Dwight advancing me, I stand and meet him, his face mere inches from mine. “What’re you doing? What’d I tell you about wasting resources? Why are you even helping him, huh? You know what he is.” He snaps at me, having spotted the bandage on our hostage’s arm.

He was right up in my face now, pushing me, daring me to take the gun from my waistband and knock him out cold. I grit my teeth.

“That wound gets infected, he dies.” I say with force, gesturing behind me. “What happens to your bargaining chip then, huh, Dwight?” I challenge him.

He takes a step back from me and narrows his eyes. “When I tell you to do something, you do it, okay? Can’t be one rule for you and another for everyone else.” He turns to walk away but I scoff loudly, nowhere near done with this argument.

“I don’t take orders from you, or anyone else for that matter. You don’t control me.” I say as I follow him, my voice beginning to rise. He had been nothing but confrontational with me since we had left Sanctuary, and I had just about had enough of it.

“Guys…” I hear Tina try to interject but Dwight has spun back round to face me at this point and ignores her.

“You don’t like my way of doing things? Fine, leave. No one’s asking you to stay! You got what you wanted, you got out – so just go.” He spits at me, his face turning red with anger.

“I’m trying to help you!” I snap. “Trying to stop you from making a mistake. After everything I’ve done to help you people, I’m not going to just watch you throw it all away.”

It’s his turn to scoff. “Help? That what you call it?”

“Dwight.” It was Sherry’s voice this time “She _did_ help us get out; you can’t deny that.”

“We would have been just fine without her.” He answers, never taking his eyes off of me.

I shake my head. “They’re not gonna trade with you. Not now. Doesn’t matter what you bring ‘em.” I shrug, watching his stony face, his expression unwavering.

“I guess we’ll just have to find out.”

With that he pushes past me and takes the place where I had been knelt down in front of the man. He begins to stir, probably having heard the noise of Dwight and I arguing. I cross my arms once more.

“Get up…” Dwight orders. The hostage slowly lifts his head as Dwight pulls out his gun and holds it to his head. “Hey! Get up! We’re moving.”

I shake my head slightly before moving back to where Tina and Sherry were stood to grab the bag. “Should’ve just tied him to a tree.” I mutter.

“It’s okay,” Sherry moves quickly to stop me from taking the bag, picking it up before I could even bend down to take the strap. “I can take it.” I raise an eyebrow at her.

“You carried it all of yesterday, I got it.” I reason, slowly taking the strap from her hand. She looks like she wants to interject but can’t find an argument. I watch her carefully as she sidles back over to her sister, shouldering the bag in the process.

“Here’s the deal. You don’t say shit and I don’t kill you” Dwight rambles on, still holding the man at gun point.

“I ain’t who ya think.” His suddenly speaks, the first time since we had come across him. His voice was throaty, deep and raw, most likely from sleep or thirst. And it surprised me.

I watched him quizzically. His eyes were narrowed but he didn’t say another word, he just held Dwight’s gaze as if they were on even footing, as if he had that crossbow of his aimed at Dwight’s head just as he aimed the gun at his.

“Say something else. Go ahead.” He threatens the man, his voice low.

Did he really think we would believe that? As if we didn’t know that he would say anything and everything to convince us to let him go. That was the thing about Saviors. They talked and talked while they were around each other but when it came down to it, they just didn’t want to die. None of their words ever meant anything. They were empty.

I hitched the bag up on my shoulder and lead the way through the forest – if you could call it that still. The smell of smoke was long gone from the air, yet there was still that unmistakable feel to the atmosphere, one that made it heavy and thick as ash was kicked up from our footsteps. Every now and then we would pass a body, or what was left of one. Blackened bones, dusted with dark soot. It was hard to believe that they were ever really people.

I could feel Sherry and Tina following closely behind me while Dwight kept the Savior on the right path. Despite everything, he didn’t try to make it difficult, just kept walking in front of Dwight – probably aware that there was no point in trying anything if he wanted to keep on living. His hands were still tied but the look on his face was completely unreadable. For someone being held hostage, he was strangely calm, almost entirely silent as we walked through what remained of the trees; even his footsteps made barely any sound. He had never even tried to resist or get away, and the only time I had ever heard him speak was when Dwight had woken him. But what he had said stuck with me and rattled around in my head as we walked on.

I didn’t believe him for a moment. A Savior would say anything. Yet, I couldn't get the words out of my head or the way he had said it. What point was there in lying about who he was even after we had made it clear we knew he was one of them? There was something about him that wasn't sitting right with me. And I couldn't pinpoint it for the life of me. It had to be a ploy – all of it. The denial, the silence. Was this all part of some bigger plan? A trap?

My ears pricked up as I fell behind, walking slower and letting my eyes dart around us. Searching. Searching for anything that would give away someone who was watching us. Saviors almost never went out alone, especially when it was a code orange. But this guy was. Or so we assumed. There again, he was hurt; maybe he got separated from whatever group he was with.

At some point Sherry took the bag from me with the excuse of needing water. I knew this was just a lie to get me to give her the bag. She didn’t trust me. We had made a deal to help each other out, but to part ways shortly after. I think she thought I would attempt to steal from them. How little they thought of me – and without even really knowing all that much about me. I didn’t care. I took the opportunity to slow down some more and get a better look at our new friend.

He had unruly hair that fell in long strands over his face, obstructing his eyes that shifted into a sharp, calculating gaze, so cold it almost made me shiver even with the unbearably hot sun beating down on me. We had been walking for some time now, apparently looking for a truck Dwight wanted to retrieve – if it was even still there – and I was beginning to sweat and pant. My hair was sticking to my skin uncomfortably. I carefully gathered the long strands and pulled them up into a ponytail, the air on the back of my neck refreshing, although still humid. I had noticed my prolonged time outside in the harsh sunlight had lightened my hair a shade, turning it to a brown not unlike the color of falling leaves in autumn.

I began to regret using the last of my water on that guy, but quickly forced myself to stop thinking about it. Thinking about water just made the thirst worse. As if reading my thoughts, Tina turns around and holds a water bottle out to me with a small smile. I took it gratefully and swallowed a large mouthful before handing it back to her. To my surprise, Sherry offered some to the Savior. He stared at her but said nothing and made no attempt to reach for the bottle.

“We don’t need you falling down.” Dwight steps in front of him, forcing the bottle into his hand now. “Drink.” He orders forcefully. With little more hesitance our hostage downed the rest of the water after Dwight’s little outburst, as if to prove a point.

I rolled my eyes at his unnecessary aggression, but I understood why he did it. The heat was unforgiving and although the man wore only a sleeveless shirt and jeans, sweat still dripped from him. It coated his exposed arms, making them glisten in the harsh light and his long hair stick to him in the same way it had me only a few minutes ago. If he passed out from heat stroke or dehydration that would only slow us down more. So, I didn’t say anything. I was tired of fighting with Dwight, who seemed, not only to dislike me, but to have some type of deep-rooted resentment for me.

I’m no saint, I’ll admit but I had done nothing to him or his family. I had helped them get away from the Sanctuary, given them the distraction they needed to get the insulin for Tina and bolt before anyone noticed. He had never liked me; most likely because I was the one to convince Tina and Sherry that they needed to get out. They had thought about it, of course, but it was me that gave them that last push. If he didn’t like me because of that, then that’s his issue. I wasn’t about to apologize for showing them that they didn’t have to live in fear, that they could have freedom again.

Even if I did have ulterior motives behind it all.

Suddenly, Dwight had stopped dead and turned to face the man. I hadn't been listening to them, but they had my attention now as he continues into another bout of passive aggression.

"They find us, maybe we give you to them, they let us call it even." He says matter-of-factly. "You see, we're reasonable people. Everybody's got their code. You feel you gotta kneel, that's fair enough. We don't." Dwight takes the bottle back from him forcefully. "Let's go."

I watch as he hauls the man off, continuing his quick pace. I shake my head at him. Clearly, he had ignored me again. He still believed that the Saviors would strike up a deal with four people who had stolen from them and ran. Four people who had cost them endless amounts of time, energy and resources in the attempt to hunt them down and bring them back to make an example out of them. Yeah, I’m sure they would be open to making a compromise. Dwight liked to think he knew them better than I did, but he was clueless in reality.

"You did all this?" I hear the man’s strange and raw voice speak up again for only the second time since we had unofficially known him. I hadn’t been listening again, but I made sure to stay attentive in hope that he would say more.

"It was right at the start." Sherry answers. "Everything stopped, the TV, the radio. We were here. The forest was full of them and the other ones in town were drawn to it. They just walked right into the flames." She explains, her voice breathy as if she wanted to sigh. "We got most of them. Thought we ended it for us..."

I listened carefully, unaware that this whole place – it’s charred appearance and thick air – had been the work of my travel companions. I had guessed that they had been here before, considering that Dwight was so adamant about this truck being where he had last seen it, but I never would have thought that they were the ones responsible for the sorry state of the scenery around us.

"We were stupid." I hear Dwight say from behind me.

"Y'all don't think you're being stupid right now?" I turn at the sound of his voice, once again ringing out unexpectedly. But there was something different about his tone now, it was stronger, and as I watched his eyes they narrowed into slits. I clenched my jaw and reached for my gun, ready for anything he might try.

Dwight pulls the gun from his waistband, far more accepting of a fight than I was, and takes several purposeful strides towards our hostage who had stopped walking, pulling it to his forehead as he had before. Sherry and Tina stepped back a few inches while I continued to stand my ground.

"Are you saying I should kill you?" Dwight threatens, keeping his hand steady, but the man doesn't falter, doesn't flinch. "I mean it, are you gonna try and pull something on us? Are we just being thick here by not removing all doubt?" He pauses, as if waiting for the other to say something but he remains his silence.

I watch curiously with Tina and Sherry, wondering if Dwight was really ballsy enough o pull that trigger, or if he was just talk, like the Savior that stood in front of him, staring him down. I knew Dwight had never killed anyone, he admitted it himself, but he had told me he would if he needed to – to protect Sherry or Tina. When he told me that, I had wondered if I was really making the right decision by helping them, wondered if his words held any truth.

"Right now, by me not pulling this trigger, is that a mistake? I'm serious, I really wanna know... You made the choice to kill for someone else, to have them own you for a roof over your head and three squares, so maybe I'm not considering all aspects here." Dwight's voice becomes angrier, more dangerous. "You tell me, am I being stupid?" He puts emphasis on every word of that last sentence.

The silence was heavy, and it dragged on for what seemed like hours. Dwight’s frustration was growing, his temper becoming shorter and shorter the longer we were out here, it was incredibly noticeable. Although I didn’t want someone else to die, I was curious to see the ending here.

"No." His deep voice says simply. "Look, I got somewhere to be. We can make a deal. I can help you out."

My face hardens as he continues to talk and I suddenly can't fathom the audacity of this man in front of me. Why on earth did I waste my water one him? Deals. It's always about deals with the Saviors. What you have to pay off and how you can pay it off. All the ways in which you can make your life a little easier. All the shortcuts to getting there.

"We're done making deals." I snarl, glaring at him as I lose my temper. His eyes meet with mine briefly but they quickly flick back to Dwight who still had his gun trained on him.

"You're one of them. You're hurt and you're alone and you'd say anything. We should have never trusted you people to begin with." He scoffs and shakes his head no, and for once I find myself in agreement with him. He had voiced my thoughts exactly. "Go on. Keep moving." He juts his gun to the side, indicating for our hostage to move which he does.

No one says anymore as we continue on once again. The conversation had died along with any resemblance of a threat from the man. Tina slows down to walk side by side with me, smiling a little when I catch her eye. I know she feels like she has to be nice to me because, ultimately, the only reason I had helped them all is because of her. But I genuinely liked Tina, she had a sweet look about her with that bright smile and wide, doe-like eyes matched with the shiny blonde hair. I had felt bad for her when I heard about her situation and I wanted to help, but that didn’t mean her sister or brother-in-law wanted me around any longer than necessary. I was just holding up my end of the deal.

The forest begins to give way to new greenery, signs of life once again fill my sight and as the brush thins, I begin to make out the chain link fence of what seemed to be a parking lot located behind a building. I hang back a little as we get closer, feeling my shoulders drop as I take in the sight before me. I had stopped short in my tracks, knowing that I had been right in my skepticism.

"Son of a bitch." Dwight curses as he picks up his pace before stopping in front of the fence.

The place was complete overrun. The dead walked aimlessly between the cars and trucks, no purpose to their movements. Growling and snarling as they waited for their next meal to arrive. That would be us if we weren’t quick about this.

"Patty." Dwight breathes.

"She could be..." Sherry trails off. Dwight runs a hand through his long hair in frustration.

"No. She's gone." He says defeatedly.

I cross my arms in front of my chest and watch the scene in front of me, the smell of death strong in the air. I was tired, hot and just about ready to call it quits. I had agreed to take them to this truck, the one Dwight had sworn up and down would still be here and yet it was clear it wasn’t. From here we were supposed to drive the closest town and restock on supplies before parting ways for good, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen any time soon.

"Then we make another plan." Sherry begins to nod rapidly, as if trying to convince herself.

"Yeah, we get out of here, that's the plan." Dwight turns to face her.

"Then that's the plan." Sherry agrees.

“We can walk to the town.” I pipe up after a second’s consideration. They both turn to me. “I know the way fairly well; we can take a secluded route through the tree, stay out of view. There’s got to be a car there that you guys can take.”

Dwight just stares at me, his eyes hard and cold but Sherry nods, the ghost of a smile gracing her lips.

"You guys didn't have to do this for me." Tina speaks up, staring off at the fence.

"It was the right thing for all of us." Sherry reassures her sister.

"This was the right thing? Even if just you guys went back now, if you told them that it was me..." She continues, looking on the verge of tears, as if this was all her fault. I frown, taking a step closer to her.

"We'll find a way."

"Just think about it-"

"No!" Sherry's voice is louder now, cutting Tina off completely.

"Look, maybe we don't get as far..." Dwight begins.

I reach for Tina, attempting to give her some type of hope again but before I could she loses her balance suddenly and begins to fall. Sherry and Dwight are quicker than I am and go to grab her and keep her steady as she starts to faint. There was a lot of noise at once, Sherry’s voice attempting to keep her sister awake, Dwight’s concerned panic and my own curses as the dead begin to notice our presence and start rattling at the chain link fence. I probably wouldn’t have even heard the sound of footsteps running if I hadn’t looked up to get the bag with Tina’s insulin in.

It was gone from the ground where Sherry had left it, and in that moment my panic heightened as I realized what had happened, watching as the man disappeared back into the forest with surprising speed. I turn quickly as Dwight yells at him to stop, firing off a round of bullets at him but he was already gone.

"We need that, please!" Sherry's voice calls out, desperate.

I barely even think about what I’m doing before my feet carry me off after him, as if it was the only thing they knew how to do. The ground beneath me crunched and sprayed ash as I hurried after him, chasing him through the blackened trees and bushes, my adrenaline pumping hard and fast as I rounded sharp turns behind tree trunks, attempting to keep up with him. I pulled my shirt up and took the handgun from my waistband, sliding the safety off as I ran. He was far faster than I was but I kept running, looking for footprints until I had to slow myself and really listen carefully to make sure he didn’t hear me coming. I held my gun close as I slowed my pace right down, bending my legs to stop my footsteps making too much noise. I had to find him. Tina needed that insulin and we had all risked too much by this point to just give it up.

"Sasha, Abraham, you there?" I hear the faint sound of his raspy, panting voice trickling through the forest, my ears pricked up and I crouched even lower.

Suddenly, I could hear his labored breathing and then I could see him. Laying low in a ditch, the bag next to him, holding a walkie-talkie in his hand. I took refuge behind a collection of singed bush and tree bark, watching him as his chest heaved from his escape.

I could hear the faint growling of a roamer approaching but I stayed put and watched. I needed to get the jump on this guy if I stood any chance. He was bigger than me, obviously stronger. There was no way I could beat him in a fair fight. He began to search the bag as the roamer grew closer, then more frantically as the growling grew louder. I spied the thing between branches. It was mostly bone, all of its skin burned off or melted, but thick moss had begun to grow over it and a single flower sprouted from its chest. It was ironically beautiful.

I was almost glad for its presence. If it got to him before he could retrieve his weapon, I wouldn’t have to intervene at all, just wait for it to do its thing and then take the bag back to the clearing for Tina. I was strangely relieved and breathed deep to calm my racing heart, my gun still aimed at him. I wouldn’t let him suffer for long. But I didn’t need to worry about that; he was able to pull his weapon free and aim hastily before firing.

One shot.

The arrow flew into the roamers head and landed square between its eyes. He barely had time to aim and yet the shot was so incredibly perfect that I was almost in awe of the skill and practice it must have taken to become so acquainted with the weapon. I crouched a little lower, suddenly very worried that he might see me. My heart rate picked up again. One thing was clearer to me now, this guy wasn’t just another Savior. He knew how to fight, how to defend, and how to survive.

My hand clenched tighter around my gun until my knuckles turned white. So much for letting nature run its course. I felt the dread of realization hit me as I readied myself to take the first opportunity that arose to shoot. He placed the crossbow back down and began to stand. I readied myself to take him, knowing this was the best moment I was going to get. I aimed; my hands surprisingly steady, but my finger wouldn’t move.

I closed my eyes tightly, feeling my chest tighten in anticipation. When I opened them again, I dropped the gun to my side and let my shoulders sag, breathing a quiet shaky breath. I couldn’t do it. I had made a promise to myself when I decided to leave Sanctuary; no more killing. No more death.

I ran a hand over my face and slowly began to stand a little, ready to make my way back and tell them some lie about him getting away, disappearing before I could even aim my gun. But when I looked back at him, he was staring at the bag on the ground where the insulin lay, his breathing still erratic but his expression suddenly conflicted. Just as quickly as he had before, he picks up the bag and his crossbow and makes his way towards where I was concealed. I crouched lower again, holding my breath as he walks past my hiding space. He wasn’t heading towards the road anymore, he was doubling back on himself, returning to the clearing where we had left Dwight, Sherry and Tina. When he’s far enough away I let myself breathe again, feeling my heart pounding against my rib cage as a soft, thankful smile creeps onto my lips.

❊

**EDITED** **✓**


	3. TWO

My feet fell in silent footsteps across the ashy ground, still crouched low to the ground, my gun drawn, although it hung by my side still. I followed the man through the woods, keeping my distance while he treaded carefully, retracing his steps. I wasn't about to reveal myself to him just yet; if he knew I had been following him he may change his mind about being so generous as to return the insulin. I wasn't about to take any chances. If I could get out of this without having to threaten the guy, then I would.

However, this whole situation had completely warped my view on just who the man in front of me was. We had assumed he was a Savior, all of us. Who else would be out in these woods and just so happen to run into four escapees? It made the most sense, but the more I dwelled on it, the more I began to think that wasn't the case. He certainly looked like a Savior, but he didn't act like one. He was quiet, attentive and most importantly, he was considerate of our situation.

Of course, it was possible that Dwight was right – he was probably just some soldier from an Outpost who hated _him_ as much as we did, only taking the insulin back in order to gain some type of petty revenge so that he could feel better himself. We hadn't taken much, after all. Letting us get away would be a small justice, but enough to allow the man to feel like he still had some choice over his actions.

But I just didn't buy it. His words kept ringing in my ears, _I ain't who you think._ I thought it was a weird thing to say, considering that it was clear that our minds were made up and if he really was a Savior, he would have realized trying to change them would be futile. Any other soldier would have made threats of people coming to find him, knowing where he was and where to look. This guy was just oddly silent.

I was conflicted. I wanted to believe that maybe he wasn't one of them, maybe he was good but I knew all too well the dangers of getting your hopes up, especially in the new world. So maybe he wasn't a Savior, but that didn't mean he was safe. Trusting the wrong person could mean the difference between life and death. So, I kept my distance.

As we began to get closer to the clearing, I slowed down and came to a halt behind some bushes. Making sure I could see everything that was going on, I trained my gun on our once-hostage as he made his presence known. The three jumped where they sat and Dwight quickly tried to get on the defense.

"Drop the gun. Drop it." His voice was stronger than it had been before when he had talked, still raspy and breathless but more comfortable and confident in the fact that he had control over what would happen this time.

Dwight hesitated for only a moment before he lowered his hand while the man pressed forward. I clenched the handle of my own gun, letting my forefinger hover over the trigger. I really couldn't afford to back out this time if things took a wrong turn. I noticed Sherry pulled her sister closer, a frantic look in her eyes.

"Give it to me." His voice was quieter now as he reached out to take the gun from Dwight. Once he had it, he snatched his hand back, making the distance between them larger again. His movement seemed far too hasty, like he was desperate for Dwight not to try anything. Silently pleading them all to just go along with his demands. He didn't want to have to hurt them. I felt my arms slaking and my grip loosen as my gaze became more curious and less focused. "Came all this way. What you got for the duffle? You put me through too much shit just to give it back. Principle of the thing. What you got besides this gun?" He pressed, shifting his weight continuously as he talked.

"Nothing." Sherry said quietly, still holding her sister tightly, her eyes pleading.

"Where's Wendy?" Tina spoke up weakly, focusing her gaze on the man. "What'd you do to her?" She demanded now, mustering what must have been a strenuous amount of energy in her condition to make her voice louder and steadier.

I suddenly felt a pang of guilt. Tina was the only one of them that seemed to care me, even in the state she was in. She shouldn't have been worrying about me, especially not now, and it made me want to step out right then and there just to tell her I was okay. But I couldn't. Not without risking her safety. So, I didn't. I stayed behind the tree, shuffling my feet slightly and tightening my aim once again. The man looked at the three, seemingly only now noticing that there was indeed a fourth person before who was now missing. His eyebrows furrowed slightly.

"I didn't do shit." He growled. "What was that thing you were carving?" He asks after a slight pause, motioning to Dwight who looks taken aback slightly before digging into his pocket and pulling at a small wooden figurine he had been whittling.

"My grandfather taught me how—" Dwight began, only to be cut off by the man.

"Don't care." He says bluntly. He was getting antsy; I could tell he wanted to make a sharp exit. "It'll do." He took a hesitant step forward and took the wooden figure from Dwight quickly. Then, seemingly satisfied, to some extent, he slid the bag off his shoulder and chucked it at them. I began to lower my gun, letting out another small breath, ready for this whole thing to be over.

"Take it. It's all there." He says forcefully before taking a few steps back. Dwight takes the bag, obviously confused by the man's actions but unable to find it in him to argue or ask why in fear of changing his mind. He turns and begins to walk away, not without a few last words; "Good luck. You're gonna need it." He turns his back fully up them and begins back into the trees towards me. I crouched lower so he wouldn't see me as he passed.

But he didn't end up getting that far.

The sounds of trees branches snapping and the commotion of a large group of people moving in our direction makes my head snap up and my eyes widen in sudden adrenaline-filled fear. The distinct sound of a vehicle approaching made its way to my ears and my whole body suddenly felt as if it were made of stone. It was them, so unmistakably them. After everything. All the things we had done to avoid being tracked, and the whole situation with the man seemingly being resolved; it was like someone had just punched me in the gut for daring to think the worst was over.

The man dived quickly behind the tree opposite me, turning his head to look at what the noise was and catching a glimpse of my figure still crouched low. He narrows his eyes at me in surprise and suspicion as he takes in my gun which I had raised once again. I smile at him with a mocking sweetness from my position, bringing a finger to my lips in a silent hush before turning back to the commotion that was taking place.

From his reaction, I figured that the guy wasn't a Savior, as I had begun to wonder, and really had just in the wrong place at the wrong time. For that very reason, I wondered why he had stayed behind. Why hadn't he just run at the sounds of other people like anyone else would have? Why stick around to watch what was about to go down when he had already gotten what he wanted from us? My hush had been more of a threat than a helpful warning and I kept an eye on his body language while simultaneously watching the scene in front of us unfold.

Both Dwight and Sherry had stood up, their faces a mix of frightened and defeated. Sherry was stood in front of her sister, once again wanting to protect her. The vehicle approached noisily, it's breaks squeaking as it came to a halt in the small clearing's outskirts. I sucked in a breath as the doors to the truck creaked open and footsteps made their way towards the three who stood there, unable to do anything. There was too many of them to just shoot at blindly, scanning the tree line I saw an endless number of Saviors blocking our way out, all of them armed. This was exactly what I had been afraid of; being found because we stayed in one place for too long. The small victory of being right felt sour in my mouth as the lead Savior spoke. I couldn't see him from where I was crouched, I only caught glimpses of him but I recognized his voice immediately.

"Let's end this." He called as he and his group approached calmly.

"It's ours." Sherry says breathlessly without so much as hesitating. "We earned what we took." I could make out Dwight's face as he turned to his wife. A look that spoke of fear for her as she continued to talk back to the men, entirely unafraid.

"You're gonna return what you took." Wade says matter-of-factly, his tone patronizing as if he was talking to a small child. Something I remembered all too well. I felt my hands tighten around the gun I was holding, the temptation of pulling the trigger right here and now to end that jackass' pathetic existence was almost too strong to resist. "You're gonna pay for the gas it took to come out here," Wade continued, placing a hand on his hip. "And for all the time these men took out. It's over. You know the rules."

My hands began to shake as he spoke, the metal rattling quietly. I took long, deep breathes to try and calm myself but I was seething. I was almost positive you could feel the anger radiating off my tensed body. Of course, it was Wade he had sent out here to find us. He enjoyed making me suffer, reminding me of the _rules,_ making my life a living hell day after day for months on end. I would make an exception on the promise I made to myself if it meant sticking bullet right between his eyes.

"Your rules are batshit!" I heard Sherry all but yell now, her anger heightening to almost match my own.

"We're not going back, Wade. We're done kneeling!" Dwight added, his voice growing louder also.

I felt my breathing steady, my focus returning as I tried to aim for Wade as he stood among the burnt down forest, feeling my forefinger land on the trigger once again.

"Don't change the subject asshole." Wade retorts bluntly, shifting his stance and falling out of line with my aim. I silently curse and shuffle to the side in order to find a new angle, someone that proved considerably harder than initially thought. There was no gap in the brush which allowed me to get a clean shot without giving myself away. I had to think of something else.

He whistles once and the engine of the truck brings to rev. I grit my teeth, my eyes narrowed. The truck moves forward, more fallen trees snapping under its weight. I heard movement beside me and glanced over to the man with the crossbow. He was still there. He had stood up now, looking about the trees. I followed his gaze and saw the line of Saviors that blocked us in again. I think he had begun to realize there was only one way out of this. His eyes land on mine for a split second, the intense stormy blue conveying a message to me. I nod once showing that I understand and he steps out from the trees to where Dwight, Sherry and Tina are hurriedly grabbing their things.

"Hey, hey." He calls, catching their attention. "Come on, that way." He gestures towards where I have now stood up from as I wave my hand for them to follow. "Come on. Go, go, go." He prompts.

Dwight is the first to run towards me, not bothering to give me a second glance as he continues on. Sherry tries to help Tina up but the man takes over, lifting the girl effortlessly and pulling her along. Sherry looks worried for a second before realizing that we don't have much choice but to trust him to help us right now and hurrying after her husband. She gives me a look of thanks as she passes but says nothing. The man and Tina limp past me slowly and I follow behind, keeping my gun ready as we begin to run through the trees again, ash kicking up from our hasty departure.

I can hear the truck moving idly through the close-knit trees as we put some distance between us and them. Dwight ducks behind a pile of fallen tree branches that acts as a wall and we all follow suit. The man lets Sherry take Tina from him and looks around us for any of the Saviors. I kneel next to Tina and smile at her as she breathes heavily.

"You're okay." She says airily, a weak smile gracing her lips.

"Of course I am." I shrug but can't help the smile which crosses my face.

"Hey," The man speaks up once again, his voice no more than a quiet hum. He holds the gun he took from Dwight back to him. "Take it." He insists. Dwight stares at the man for a moment, still clearly cautious of him but takes it quickly.

The two keep their eyes on our surroundings, their weapons ready. I follow their lead, leaving Tina's side and allowing Sherry to take care of her while I look through the breaks in the branches, keeping my gun close to my chest. We could hear the static of walkie-talkies and the low conversations that came through them, along with the footsteps of the men that hunted us. My heartbeat was erratic as we sat there, waiting, unable to do anything but hope that we got lucky and they somehow passed by us. My grip tightened again as my head began to ache with the stress.

Tina begins mumbling incoherently as I suddenly spot one of the Saviors walking around not too far from where we were hidden. I shoot Sherry a glance as she picks up the bag, reaching for Tina's insulin and shushing her quietly, stroking her hair maternally.

I focus back on the Savior approaching us all too quickly, my breath hitched as he searched carefully around trees. Our once-hostage begins to reach forward between the branches and rustled some of the burnt leaves from the trees before falling back behind our hiding spot hastily. I turn to him quickly, my eyes wide with disbelief, wonder just what he thought that would accomplish. The Savior began moving towards us, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the noise. I felt my finger tense around the metal beneath it but I stopped, spotting the roamer that was trapped between two rocks.

The Savior had not noticed it and he was about to walk in very close proximity to it. I turned back to the man; his eyes fixed intensely on the Savior he had intended to lead into a trap. My curiosity was peaked once again, wondering just who exactly was he and why was he helping us?

As he stepped in front of the rock, the roamer grabbed him swiftly, growling and snarling as he began to scream, desperately bashing his gun against its skull. But it was too late, I had heard the tearing of flesh that always made my stomach churn and by the time he had killed it for good, his arm was gushing thick, red blood.

"Wade, I'm bit!" The Savior yelled out, his voice shaking and desperate. Dwight, the man and I all watched from behind the trees as he yelled to Wade who came hurriedly as the man doubled over next to a large rock. "Take it off me! Just take it off!" The man begged as Wade swiftly removed his belt from around his waist.

He tied it tightly around the man's arm as he continued to shout at him to do it, and do it quickly. Then, Wade took out a large knife and without hesitation, began to hack the man's arm off. I turned away quickly, scrunching my eyes shut but that didn't stop the sounds reaching my ears. The sound of bone being crushed and splintering as it was broken, the sound of metal against rock. The screaming, so blood curdling and all too familiar I had to bring my hands up to my ears to block it and stop myself from witnessing the scene. When I open my eyes, I breathed in deeply and glanced over my shoulder to look at Tina who was now being given her insulin shot by Sherry. I sighed in relief at knowing she would be okay now, listening to the voices of the Saviors grow fainter as they returned to the clearing to treat the Savior who had just been mutilated.

When all was quiet again, Dwight turns to the man with the crossbow. "We thought you were with them." He explains. I eye the man in question as he watches us all, moving away from the tree he was standing by while we're all still on the ground. "We knock you over the head, tie you up, threaten to kill you..." Dwight lists, his tone becoming that of disbelief as he raises his eyebrows at the man. "Why the hell did you come back?"

That was the question that had been plaguing my mind for far too long now, and I was ready to get my answer. Dwight was right, after everything we did, he still helped us. I was nervous as to why. People didn't do things for nothing nowadays and being in debt to someone in a time like this was dangerous. The man simply looked to all of us individually, his eyes darting from person to person before he looked downwards for a split second.

"Maybe I'm stupid, too." He says with a shrug, his voice low and raspy, yet now it didn't seem so threatening. I was intrigued, more so than I would have liked to admit, but you had to be a certain type of person to come face-to-face with the Saviors for the first time and come away unscathed.

I stood up from my kneeling position and lock eyes with him for a second time. "What's your name?" I ask him as he watches me closely.

"Daryl." He answers me without any temporizing. And that was all I needed to know.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	4. THREE

Falling into step with Tina as we walked, I felt a weight be lifted from my shoulders; all of the tension from my body disappeared along with the departing Saviors and this time I really believed they would stay gone. I had heard Wade say that there was no point in looking anymore, even if they just stopped for today, that gave us enough time to get away from here. Find a car and just keep driving until we thought we were far enough away. The others, Dwight, Sherry and the man who we now knew as Daryl, were a few steps behind me and Tina as we lead the way through the forest. She was carrying the duffle bag now, despite still being weak from collapsing earlier, she had insisted on carrying it herself.

"Are you sure you don't want me to take that?" I asked her, raising my eyebrows quizzically. She turned to look at me, her short blonde hair grazing her eyelashes.

"It's okay, I've got it." She smiles at me then and I pause for a moment.

I wanted to thank her for being worried about me, for not just writing off my disappearance as getting lost or leaving on my own accord. She had a thousand things to worry about in that moment, and yet she thought of me. In reality, it was probably due to the fact that I had risked my own life to help her and her family escape Sanctuary, and she felt like she had to repay me for that. But I knew her nature by now; she was just a caring and considerate person, even with the sorry state that the world was in and the cruel nature of the people that still inhabited it.

"Thanks for worrying about me, by the way." I say after careful consideration. "But next time worry about yourself first. I wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to you just because you felt I was in danger" I add, watching her expression soften.

"You were risking your life, again, to help me. If anything, I should be the one thanking you." She answers with furrowed eyebrows, as if what I had said was somehow unorthodox at this point. "And don't say that as if your life doesn't mean anything..." She continues quietly before trailing off.

I shrug. "I only said it because when you show concern for others whilst your life is being threatened, the person threatening you can use that to their advantage."

"What else could he have taken from us?" She asks quietly, keeping her voice low so that the others didn't overhear us. "He already had the bag, Dwight's gun..." I watch her frowning face, somehow still pretty even while she looked so put out by my comment. She really had no idea.

"I don't just mean him." I shake my head, lowering my voice to match her volume as I briefly looked back at Daryl. "We got lucky, but not everyone wants to help you."

"That's why it's even more important now." She retorts quickly, her gaze suddenly very intense. "We _have_ to look out for each other, as human beings. We should be working together to survive, not point guns at one another and creating war. We're still alive, we're still breathing; that's what sets us apart from the real monsters."

The more she talks, the more pleading her tone gets, as if she's not just trying to convince me. I watched her for a moment, letting the weight of her words root themselves in me. She was right. I knew she was. Fighting each other got us nowhere, only helping to increase the rate of our inevitable demise as a species. But we had all seen the worse that humanity had to offer, that was the price of survival now. Some things are just unforgivable. And some monsters like to disguise themselves as human.

I wanted to believe that people could be good still, like Tina was. So radiant and hopeful in with her bright smiles and contagious laugh which was seldom heard these days. If anyone was going to bring people together again, there was no doubt in my mind that it would be her. She made people want to listen, to believe. Even people like me. And maybe there was some realism to her belief, I mean, despite everything we did to him, Daryl had helped us and was continuing to do so. There had to be good people still out there.

I lifted my eyes up from the ground where they had shifted to, watching the dry mud on my boots as I walked. And it was genuine.

"So you knew 'em? Still you thought I was one of 'em?" I hear Daryl's low tone from behind us. Instinctively, I slowed my pace down so that the rest of them could catch up with us, wanting to hear what he had to say. Every time he had opened his mouth to talk had surprised and intrigued me more as to who exactly he was, and I didn't want to miss a single word.

"Where we were... we were there since the beginning." Dwight replies.

"Wendy, you said you arrived a little after a year into it all?" Sherry asks me, trying to include me in the conversation. I didn't much care about participating, I just wanted to hear what our new travel buddy had to say, but I suspected she felt bad for Dwight's constant dismissal of me.

"Well, I had seen all four seasons come and go, so yeah, about a year after it all began." I shrug, keeping my voice monotone.

"Point being," Dwight continues, glaring at me as if it was somehow my fault that Sherry had brought me into the conversation. "we still didn't know everyone. Back when we first threw in with them, it was as good a place as any. Then things got harder, people got harder. Human nature kicked in and it became a truly unique kind of shitshow. " He speaks with an underlying sigh to his tone, as if what the place turned into could have been avoided. I didn't know, I had only been there long enough to witness said shitshow in all its glory, though I hadn't realized how bad it actually was until it was too late.

"People will trade anything for safety, for knowing that they're safe." I hear Sherry's voice add.

"Everything." Dwight confirmed. "So they got nothing left except just... existing."

I shift my eyes back to the tree line as they talked, not liking the subject matter. I hated to admit it, but he was spot on. People would do anything for safety now, I should know. We had all compromised at the Sanctuary, turning a blind eye to horrific things, making excuses for inexcusable actions, all because it provided safety for us. I knew all too well what it was like to just exist, without meaning or purpose, to be an empty shell of the person you were in the old world. But I realized that this wasn't an option when it came to surviving, because it was no different to being dead.

"Hey, nobody's safe anymore. Can't promise people that anyhow." Daryl says now in a way that makes me wonder if his words was supposed to embed reassurance or if it was just the morbid truth.

I notice Tina's footsteps slow besides me and turn to her with furrowed eyebrows. She was looking off at something in the distance but I couldn't tell what it was from here with all that was left of the forest in the way of my line of sight.

"You can promise the people that want to hear it." I hear Dwight answer Daryl.

I follow Tina's gaze into the distance as she begins to run off. There was a fallen structure, the frame of a building that was burnt in the forest fire that I could just make out through the trees as I quickly followed after her. I heard Dwight call to us as we approached the debris, then I heard their footsteps and knew they were following close behind. As we got closer, I realized the structure must have been an old greenhouse, except now all that remained was the metal framing. The glass must have melted away in the heat of the fires. I came to a stop a few steps behind Tina, noticing the two figures encased in glass which had melted and then solidified over their bodies. The space around them was littered with planks of half charred wood and damaged pots.

Strangely, little green shoots seemed to be sprouting out from the soil around the burnt down structure, on top of their stems rested tiny buds of glistening yellow. It seemed almost inappropriate that new life was forming around these corpses in their external glass casing, like it was mocking what these people had been, what they had died for... if for anything at all. It reminded me of the roamer I had seen whilst following Daryl, the one that had been covered in bright green moss which had somehow encouraged a beautiful, pure white flower to grow out of the corpses rib cage. I had thought ironic, but it was all just a reminder of the truth – that life would still find a way to thrive, even after we were all dead and gone.

"Carla and Delly." Tina breathed as the others came to a stop behind us, taking in the tragic excuse for a tomb themselves. "It's them." Her voice cracked as she seemed to confirm this fact to herself. She suddenly bends down to the yellow buds that grew mockingly at her feet, ripping a bunch from their stems before taking slow steps towards the corpses in the midst of the fallen greenhouse.

I watched Tina approach the people she once knew and felt a new wave of sorrow fall over me. Even though I didn't know these people, I couldn't help imagining how awful it must have been to suffocate in thick layers of black smoke as hot, molten glass burned your skin before eventually covering your entire body. Did they pass out before they were burned alive? Was it slow and painful, or were they lucky enough to be granted the good fortune of a quick, painless death? Did they suffocate in smoke, their lungs burning in their chests? Were their screams echoing in the forest for days after their hearts had stopped beating? All these morbid questions sprang to mind, and I would never know the answers to any of them. Death had been an incessant topic of interest for me recently. I couldn't stop my mind wondering these things; wondering how people died, what it was like, and how it would compare to my own eventual death.

"Me and Tina used to babysit them when they were kids." Sherry reminisces quietly. "Everyone said they went out north when it all started. We didn't know." Her voice shakes as I watch Tina place the bag down on the ground silently.

"I did this." Dwight breathes remorsefully but Sherry only shakes her head at him.

"We did this." She corrects.

Tina steps between the two figures of glass, crouching by their sides. We all watch, letting the familiar feeling of loss wash through us. I didn't know if it was really my place to share in the grief they felt, so I took half a step back and found myself looking to Daryl, the only other person there that didn't know these people when they were alive. His expression gave nothing away, it never did, but I found comfort in the fact that I wasn't alone in my isolation from this situation.

Tina's scream cuts through the grievous silence as sharp and hard as a blade. The sound made me snap my head up and look towards her with wide, searching eyes. I half expected a Savior, but all I saw was the back of Tina's head as she was pulled forcibly towards the ground, the smashing and shattering of glass loud in my ears as I realized what had happened. I heard the growling before I processed everything entirely, my breath catching in my throat as the corpses she had so tentatively mourned just moments ago, emerged from their glass bedding. Tina's continued screams hit me as if the shards of glass had somehow found their way into my skin, embedding themselves into my flesh.

I wanted to run over to her and help but even as I moved, I saw them tearing into her, ripping chunks from her neck. And then my legs buckled beneath me and I landed on the ground hard, knowing that all was lost, over before it had even begun. The others rushed past me, Daryl quicker to react than anyone else and subsequently reaching Tina first, pulling the first roamer off of her and delivering a swift blow to the head with his knife. Even as he did this, thick red blood was pouring from the place where her neck connects with her shoulder while her hands shakily grabbed at the wound, attempting to stop it. Her cries were agonizing, the terror in her eyes enough to make my entire body become rigid with pain as I saw the realization dawn on her soft features. She knew she was going to die.

Her chest began heaving with sobs as tears fell down her cheeks. I felt my own vision blur as my heart started to ache in my chest, the familiar feeling of deep sorrow threatening to consume my entire person. I forced myself to close my eyes, willing myself to forget what was happening, forget that this person I had become so involved with was now breathing her last breaths. When I opened my eyes again, I felt numb as I watched Sherry runs to her sister, holding her in her arms once again. She was sobbing hysterically but it was all just noise in the background as I stared blankly at them. I clenched my jaw so tightly, I thought I might break my teeth, but I needed to focus on something other than the scene which I could scarcely look away from. Some other form of pain.

No more death. That's what I had promised myself, but I knew I could never control what happened to the people I was around. As long as I was still breathing, I would continue to witness the deaths of others and be forced to continue living, no matter who it was that died. It was always unfair, but after all that we had been through to get to where we were, this felt like the biggest injustice of them all. Tina was one of the good people, she didn't deserve to die. Not like this. Not now. It was as if the world wanted to punish me for believing that things could be okay again. In that moment, I found myself thinking about how I kept letting this happen. How I kept on failing people who put their trust in me.

I tried to feel nothing as I pushed myself up from the ground, willing all thoughts back into the deepest corners of my mind until I could blink without feeling like tears would fall from my waterline. I stood there silently, watching Sherry's hysterics as she cradled her little sister in her protective arms for the last time.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	5. FOUR

The graves were dug, three in total. Sherry couldn't bear to even stand anymore, she sat on a pile of fallen debris, her head in her hands and the stains of tears still streaked down her cheeks. I sat a few meters apart from her and didn't utter a word. Nothing I, or anyone else for that matter, had to say would ever make her feel better. So didn't bother to waste my breath, especially since I was finding so hard to breathe as it was. My chest felt tight and my lungs heavy, as if the air still contained remnants of the smoke that was created from the fires so long ago which was now slowly suffocating me. I absentmindedly rubbed at my chest, as if that would somehow make breathing any easier.

I knew that it wasn't the air making my chest hurt. But I was choosing to ignore thinking about what had happened, why there was three graves being dug my Dwight and Daryl, not just two. I slowly sat up a bit straighter and watched the two for a while in their strange silence which was only interrupted by the grunts that accompanied the continuous labor of digging a hole big enough for a body. Their backs were to me as they worked and I found myself reaching into my back pocket only to pull out a gnarled and slightly rusted pocket knife. I hold it in my palm for a moment before slowly pulling out the blades from each end. It was pretty blunt now, but it was a good enough for the dead. A back up, of sorts. Which was well needed as, when I had checked earlier, I only had about three bullets left in the handgun I had hastily stolen from Sanctuary.

"Hey. How many walkers you killed?" I bring my eyes back up to look at the two men as I hear Daryl's unusual tone speak out as the sound of shoveling slows. Dwight doesn't acknowledge the question at first, so he continues; "Just answer the question"

"A lot." He answers finally, his breathing heavy. "Couple dozen at least"

"How many people you killed?" Daryl asks now as I begin to listen in even more intently, sliding the blades of my knife back into the handle and pocketing it again.

"None." Dwight answers again, his eyes narrowed in suspicion before he goes back to digging. I catch a glimpse of Sherry as she looks up at them while they talk, suddenly looking a lot sicklier than before, her cheeks hollowed out and her eyes large and puffy.

"Why?"

"Why haven't killed anybody?" Dwight repeats his question back to him, as if condemning the mere thought. I felt my stomach churn uncomfortably. "'Cause if I did, there'd be no going back... there'd be no going back to how things were."

His answer was matter-of-fact, as if deciding whether you had to kill someone now was still choice. Maybe that's how it was in the old world, but it's not the same now. I had seen it so many times and the fact that Dwight thought he was above killing someone who wasn't already dead just made my blood boil. Sometimes you _don't_ have a choice.

"I'm from a place." Daryl says after a considerable silence. "Where people are still like they were... more or less, better or worse."

My ears pricked up as I listened to his confession. After we had come to the conclusion that he was not, in fact, a Savior, I had just assumed that he was a "stray". Someone who was on their own. Everything from the way he had approached us so cautiously, to the way he appeared spoke volumes about his character. He was a survivor, through and through, there was no denying that. From what I had seen, he was quite capable of surviving out in the open on his own. He was tactical, deliberate and sagacious. I hazard a guess that there was reason for all of this, one that had also made him think going it alone was the best option. But this new development had thrown me for somewhat of a loop.

Dwight looked at him for a moment, but didn't say anything, just kind of looked at him as if trying to figure out if this was some kind of trap. I had seen enough. I hastily stand up and leave them to their conversation – if there was to be any more of it. I thought of how odd the questions Daryl asked had been, wondering what their meaning was, and how exactly he gauged whether or not an answer was 'right' or not. They were clearly used to decide whether people could be trusted enough to bring back to this place he had mentioned. And Dwight's answers had been good enough to ensure he could be. Would he ask me and Sherry the same questions? If so, would the truth be good enough?

This had given me something new to think about. If Daryl was telling the truth and he really was from a place, then that's no doubt where Dwight and Sherry would want to go. But did I? We had made a deal to help each other until we no longer needed each other, but with Tina... with what had happened, everything was kind of up in the air. Truthfully, I didn't want to be around people anymore. I wanted to go back to the way things were before the Saviors had found me. I was right to be cautious back then, but with time that caution had faded until it barely existed anymore. I had trusted them, trusted _him,_ but I never should have. I needed to get away from people, that was always the plan. And just because the situation had... _changed,_ that didn't mean that my own resolutions had to also.

Somehow, I had made my way back to the greenhouse – or what remained of it. I hadn't really been paying attention to where I was going as I thought, but now, as I came to a standstill, I was all too aware of my surroundings. I continued forwards until I was stood underneath the bare metal frame, the sun hot on my back as I stared down at the ground before my feet. There was shattered glass everywhere, littering the ashen floor like some kind of iridescent mosaic that outlined a single darkened spot in its center. The small pool of blood was slowly absorbing into the soil, but the glass around it had maintained their splatters. I stared down at it for so long that my neck began to ache, but I only looked up again when I felt my vision start to blur. I sniffed and wiped my face to clear my sight, feeling a heaviness in my chest again.

I would have left Sanctuary even if I hadn't of crossed paths with Tina, but I made a point of getting them all out. Because I felt for her and I couldn't just let her give in to that fate when I could do something to help. But all I had done was led her into an even worse fate. It was stupid to blame myself, I knew that, and I knew that it would only pull me into a downwards spiral but it was me who convinced them all to follow me out here. I was undeniable at fault, at least to some degree. Trying to help people, it never ended well. I should have anticipated something like this.

_We have to look out for each other, as human beings. We should be working together to survive, not point guns at one another and creating war."_

Those words – some of the last she had ever spoken to me. They overtook my pessimistic thoughts and made me frown. How badly I wanted to believe that they were possible, but I knew better. Still, I felt like I owed her something, anything that would honor her in a way that actually meant something. I thought back to Daryl and how he was willing to let us follow him back to his home, after everything we had done to him; after everything he had already done for us. If I wanted to change, for Tina, for her memory, then this would be a good starting point. I'd make sure Dwight and Sherry made it there okay, and I'd stay with them, work with them, with the people of this place. We'd survive. Together. Because that's what she would have wanted.

My eyes drifted slowly to a bright patch of yellow at the edge of my vision. I bent down and picked up the make-shift bouquet of flowers, the ones Tina had wanted to place next to her friends. I had thought of them before as a mockery. Nature's way of communicating how unimportant and meaningless human life was. How our deaths meant nothing and life would continue on without us. But now, as I held them in my hands, I saw them as a memento. A farewell to a life past and a promise of things to come. A future and bright as the golden petals that bloomed so healthily from these stems. I smiled, still feeling sorrow in my heart, except now it was accompanied by the bittersweet feeling of acceptance. And I swore to myself that I would try, for her.

When I made my way back to where the others were, bouquet still in hand, I noticed Sherry was now standing over her sister's grave, marked only by a pile of stones. The other two were marked similarly. I made my way over and stood next to her for a second, but she didn't look up at me. I decided to leave her alone and simply bent down to place the flowers on top of the dirt mound, picking up a stone and placing it on their stems to stop them blowing away. When I turned back, however, she was looking at me with large, doe-like eyes, so much like her sisters. I smiled meekly and walked away, allowing her to have her time.

I stood back and found myself about a meter away from Daryl who looked at me with an unreadable expression that made me only slightly nervous. I averted my gaze uneasily. He said nothing, but I could still feel his eyes on me. I thought he might ask me the same questions he had asked Dwight, but he didn't. I had decided to trust him but that didn't mean I understood him in anyway. In fact, he was still largely a mystery to me. He said he was from a place, but the way he appeared and acted didn't allude to that at all. He had no idea who the Saviors were, which meant wherever he was from had to be quite a distance away – so, what was he doing out here by himself?

Before I had the chance to open my mouth, Dwight stepped in font of me and motioned for me to follow him before he stepped past. I furrowed my eyebrows but compiled. He came to a stop about three meters away from where Daryl was and started talking in a whispered toned.

"What'd you think?" He asks, taking me by surprise.

"You're asking for my opinion?" I say cautiously, mirroring his low tone. I knew what he was talking about, but I wasn't quite sure why he needed confirmation from me.

"I saw you watching him. If something doesn't sit right, I need to know before we do this." I glance behind my shoulder at Daryl, pulling my lips into a tight line.

"I think he's telling the truth," I begin carefully after a second. "about there being a place, with people. Maybe it's everything he says it is, but that doesn't mean it's safe; they don't know about the Saviors." I continue, my voice lowering.

"Is that a yes or a no?" He interrupts me, his tone slightly agitated. I sigh, not wanting to fight anymore today.

"Have you asked Sherry?"

"She's not in any state to be making decisions like this." He narrows his eyes at me, his words shaper now. I scoff.

"Well, I'm done making decisions, Dwight." I say, crossing my arms with a shrug. "It's your call. Do what you want. But I was going to say; I think it'd be stupid to get this far and not even try."

I turned and walked away from him, knowing that he would only try to antagonize me further. By the time we were ready to leave, the sun had already passed its midpoint meaning that the hottest part of the day was now behind us, but the sweltering heat was still beating down on us through the bare branches of the trees. We followed Daryl through the woods, often having to step over fallen logs. Our pace was slower now, Sherry especially was lagging behind and Dwight opted to stay as close to her as possible. Even though we reduced our pace significantly, they were still quite a way behind myself who was following Daryl close at his heel. It's not that I distrusted him, I just wanted to keep him in my sights, in case something happened. After a while, we find ourselves on a small trail of sorts, from here Daryl's steps get more purposeful before he comes to a halt at a cluster of fallen branches, their leaves brown and curling at the edges. As he lifts the dead leaves out of the way, I begin to make out an object underneath; a motorbike. He doesn't hesitate to pick it up by the handle bars.

"I can walk it from here." He says as begins as he walks it along the trail. "Till we meet up with my friends. They got a car; you can ride with them."

"How many friends you say there were?" I hear Dwight question from behind us.

"I didn't. There's two of 'em." He answers bluntly. I suddenly remember what I had overheard when I had chased after him. How he was trying to contact people on the walkie-talkie as I watched from the trees. Those people he called to must have been his two friends.

"Where are they?" Dwight asks now, his tone almost hesitant. I begin to slow my pace a little, his question not quite seeming as genuine as he wanted to make out.

"We're gonna find out." Daryl says, still pushing his bike. As I listen carefully, my pace almost comes to a complete stop as I realize that his answer had just sealed whatever plan Dwight and Sherry had been creating as they kept their distance. I couldn't hear their footsteps anymore.

"H-How'd you know that they even got away? That they didn't get taken?" Dwight presses more desperately now. I continue at my slower pace, not turning around but slowly moving my hand over to where my gun lay concealed in my waistband again.

"I don't." Daryl answers again.

The silence that followed was thick and suffocating. I could only hear my pulse in my ears, I knew they still weren't following us as I began to pull my shirt up slowly, carefully, so they wouldn't notice. Then I hear the unmistakable sound of metal moving and watch as Daryl stops at the same time as me. I pull my own gun out and swing around on my heel while Daryl drops his bike and tries to get at his crossbow. Sherry grabs my arms and tries to pull me over and take my weapon but I'm stronger than she is and I manage to force her back. When I'm able to get my bearings, unable to decide who to aim at, I see Dwight holding a steady aim on Daryl who had been unable to retrieve his weapon in time. I hesitated for too long and it doesn't go unnoticed.

"Give her the gun, Wendy," Dwight orders, not even looking at me. "or I'll shoot him."

I laugh at him, probably against my better judgement. "You're really gonna let this be the first time you kill someone?" I ask, my voice suddenly a lot lower than it had been before.

"You don't think I'll do it?" he raises his eyebrows at me, his pupils suddenly wide and his voice threatening. I glare at him.

"Just do it, Wendy." Sherry chimes in quietly, holding out her hand to take the gun. I clench my jaw tightly, not feeling like I had much of a choice. I raise my hand again and aim off in a random direction, firing off the last of my ammo before throwing the empty gun on the floor at her feet.

"Take it, it won't help you." I say bitterly as I let my hand drop back down to my side.

"The crossbow, too." Dwight says now, keeping his eyes firmly on Daryl who looks between the three of us, as if trying to figure out why they had turned on me as well. It was simple, really. Dwight never had liked me, and the second he got the chance to be rid of me, he would take it. I should have seen this coming. Should have known he would somehow convince his wife that going back was the best option. The only option. I mentally cursed myself for thinking it would be any different.

"You're gonna go back? You gonna be safe?" Daryl speaks now, his tone more dejected than angry as he fixes his eyes solely on Dwight again.

"Shut up." Dwight barks.

"Ain't nowhere safe no more." He shakes his head slightly, continuing on as if Dwight hadn't said anything, not seeming phased by the gun in the slightest. I think he knew, as well as I did, that Dwight wouldn't shoot to kill.

"Give her the crossbow." Dwight repeats.

"You gonna kneel?" Daryl provokes his eyes suddenly narrowing. A sound of gunfire rings out as Dwight fires a warning shot close to Daryl's head. He barely even flinches, keeping his eyes firmly on the pair before breathing deeply and shifting the crossbow from his shoulders, passing it to Sherry who takes it cautiously. He takes a few steps back as Dwight hands his gun to his wife who holds her aim against me and Daryl as he picks up Daryl's motorcycle and climbs on. Sherry moves to get on also but when I start talking, she stops.

"So, that's it? After everything they did, you're just gonna turn back and, what? Beg for forgiveness? I told you, it doesn't _matter_ what you say or do now. They're not gonna give you a second chance." As I speak, Sherry's eyes land on me, large and apologetic, but she doesn't say a word. Dwight doesn't even acknowledge me, choosing to pretend like he can't hear me. I tried to keep my voice steady, but the anger that boiled the blood in my veins was ever present in my face.

"Tina's dead!" I shout now, aiming to get some sort of reaction out of at least one of them. My outburst is entirely impulsive and I don't stop to think about the words that fall from my mouth, so venomous and full of malice. "And all you two can think about is how that means you can run back to the place she wanted to escape from so desperately. You're spineless, selfish! Can you not even spare a second thought to ask whether this is what she would have wanted? Do you really care so little about what they did to her? What they _wanted_ to do to her?" even as my voice rises, I can see the anger in Sherry's face accumulating, every emotion flashing across her face at once. Even Dwight looks up at me now.

"Don't you _ever_ talk about my sister like you knew her." She takes a step closer, her finger laying threateningly on the trigger of the gun as she moves towards me, but even as she does, I can see her hand shaking. "You _didn't_ know her; you didn't know what she wanted." Her voice matches mine in its venom, but I just stared her down.

"C'mon." Dwight prompts, giving me one last glare as Sherry gets on the back of the bike with him, the engine spluttering to life.

"Patch yourself up." Sherry turns to Daryl, throwing some medical supplies on the ground at his feet, her gun still aimed at us. "We're sorry." She adds quietly, looking at Daryl – and at Daryl only – choosing to keep her eyes away from me as much as possible, clearly uncomfortable with knowing that what I had said was true.

"You're gonna be." Daryl says without missing a beat, his voice low and gravelly. Dwight then drives off on Daryl's motorcycle, the engine loud in my ears. I bend down and pick up one of the packets Sherry threw on the floor, taking serval large steps after them before throwing it with all my strength in some feeble attempt at showing my malice before crumpling slightly and running a hand over my eyes.

I had been so caught up in trying to convince myself that going to this place, putting my faith in Daryl's words, was going to pay off that I had neglected to see the signs. Dwight never asked for my opinion on anything, he didn't give a shit about me. I guess I had just thought that Tina's sudden death had made him realize that we should be working together, just like it had made me want to try. But that was wishful thinking. How long had he and Sherry known that this was the way things would go? I would never understand wanting to go back there, but there again he hadn't been through the same things I had there. They thought it was the only place left to go, but it wasn't. Proof of that fact was stood right behind me and as long as there was still that possibility, I was going to try my damnedest to make it work. There had to be good people left in this world.

I stared after that motorcycle for far too long, listening as the hum of the engine faded, leaving behind only the slight ruffle of dead leaves and a smoke of ashy cloud. I was so unbelievably pissed off, not just at them, but myself too. The sound of footsteps was the only thing that brought me out of the trance I felt myself slipping into. Over my shoulder, I saw Daryl sliding a leather jacket on over his shirt and taking large strides off along the trail in the opposite direction of Sherry and Dwight. I was caught off guard and quickly put on a jog to catch up with him.

"Hey!" I call to him, but he doesn't show any signs of stopping. "You'll still take me to where you're from, right?" I ask as I begin to fall in line with his pacing, still almost at a jog and struggling to keep up. He doesn't answer. "You can't just leave me here!" I argue, his silence only adding to the pent-up anger I was beginning to feel replace the tight, sorrowful feeling in my chest from earlier. "I'm only going to keep following you!" I point out, managing to get in front of him and block his path.

"Move out my way." He growls with narrowed eyes. I shake my head.

"Take me." I say defiantly, standing my ground.

"After what your friends just pulled? Forget it." He scoffs, trying to barge past me again. I push my hands against his chest and dig my heels in to stop him once again.

" _Friends_?" I raise my eyebrows at him indignantly. "They left me too, ya know." I say as I remove my hands from him and let them drop to my sides. He steps back from me, watching me closely, his feet moving half a step one direction and then half a step in the other in a manner that reminded me of a restless tiger at the zoo, pacing alongside the wired fence of its cage. When he came to a standstill, he studied me through his long hair.

"Yeah, and why's that?" He says it as more of an insult but I just stare at him and sigh.

"Dwight never liked me. He didn't like me because I was the one to convince Tina and Sherry that they needed to get out of the place we were. He agreed, sure, but reluctantly." I answer him, his expression never once indicating that he was surprised by my answer. As I recount, my voice becomes hard with resentment before I paused, considering how much I should say. "Everything I did, I did it for Tina. I didn't want her to suffer. Because she would have if she stayed there. And now she's dead and that's on me..." I trail off, my throat becoming tight. I scanned his face for any expression change, but once again he gave nothing away. "I've seen a lot of people die... but she was by far the least deserving. She was good. And if I have to keep on living, then I want to do one last thing for her. She believed in people, that they could work together to survive. So, take me to your community and I'll _try_ , for her, because I _have_ to. Or just keep walking, pretend none of this ever happened and leave me out here with the dead."

He stared at me for a long while, his hair still covering his face and keeping me from seeing all the subtle changes in his expression that would have given me some kind of indication as to what he was thinking. I stared right back up at him, feeling him weighing me mentally, deciding whether or not I was worth the risk. It was an odd feeling, one that made my heart rate pick up slightly in nervous anticipation. He didn't know that he was deciding my fate in a far more permanent way than just whether or not I would eat tomorrow. His words would change the course of my fate. For better or worse.

"How many walkers you killed?" He asks suddenly cutting into the silence. I was slightly surprised, having completely forgotten about the questions he had asked Dwight earlier, the ones that started with this very interrogative.

"I haven't exactly been keeping count." I say carefully. "Couple hundred?" I shrug as his eyes remain on me.

"How many people you killed?" He asks again, following the pattern of questions he'd ask Dwight.

"None." I say bluntly, knowing exactly what the last question would be now.

"Why?" He asks his last question.

"I haven't needed to." I answer instantly. "I've wanted to, but I haven't needed to." I admit, watching his face that still gave nothing away. He takes a step closer to me again, getting in my face so that we were mere inches apart. I could smell the sweat dripping off of him along with the faint and distinct scent of oil.

"You do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you." He says in a low, threatening voice. "And if you try anything, you will regret it." His stormy blue eyes met my own as a smile struggled its way to my lips. I brought my hand up to my forehead in a two-finger solute, no longer able to hide the playful smile.

"Yes, Sir." I reply, not at all phased by his intended threat. He moves back again, his eyes lingering on me a second longer before he begins to follow the trail again, myself close behind.

He doesn't say anything else to me, doesn't look back on me to check I was following. I had a feeling he didn't really care. I expected that. Thanks to Dwight and Sherry, whatever trust we had built with him was completely shattered and I was going to have to work hard to get it back. I had an inkling that he wasn't the type of guy to forgive someone easily after they crossed him. Of course, I hadn't actually done anything, but being linked to them was enough, especially when I hadn't really said much to him before now. I liked to know who I was dealing with before I interacted with them, but Daryl was so hard to judge I still wasn't entirely sure I understood his character. Even just the basics of his personality. He could be considerate and helpful, even to people who had pointed a gun at his head and threatened him, but he was also the type of person to lead someone he had never met towards a trapped roamer. Still, I couldn't exactly judge him on that alone, I didn't exactly consider myself to be morally superior.

"This community, it's been there since the beginning?" I ask now as our steps become larger, we were walking slightly up hill through the trees, beginning to deviate from the path. His only reply is a half-hearted grunt that I was barely able to hear. I pull my lips into a thin line, willing myself not to get annoyed at how little he was giving me to work with.

"But you weren't?" I ask, hoping to get more of a reaction. It was clear Daryl was a survivor from the way he dressed, acted, moved. He was careful and calculating, whether he realized it or not. That's not something you learn from hiding behind walls. This time he doesn't even bother to give any indication that he was listening, just continued to walk his way through the forest, clearing a path for us to walk through.

"Sasha and Abraham. They your friends?" I ask now, thinking back to what I'd heard when I followed him. Finally, I got my reaction. He turned and stared at me through narrow slits.

"How'd ya know their names?" He asks in his low threatening tone, taking a few steps back towards me. I stop in my tracks and give him a bored look as if it were obvious.

"I heard you on that walkie-talkie of yours." I admit, watching as he flicks a strand of hair from his eyes.

"You followed me?"

"You took our stuff, what was I supposed to do? Sit down on the ground and cry about it?" I raise my eyebrows at him to which he only grunts again.

"Why didn't ya shoot me? Ya had a gun." He says, looking down at me with something like interest.

"I was waiting for the right moment." I answer, averting my eyes to look just behind him. Looking back on it, I probably should have shot him the first chance I got, even if it was just in the leg, but I wasn't thinking straight. "I'm glad I didn't, now." I mumble the last part, my thoughts tumbling out of my lips.

He exhales forcefully before turning back around without another word and continuing through the trees again. After a while we make it back onto part of a trail, there was a roamer there, burnt down to nothing but charred bone and melted black skin. Its face was encased in a helmet, growling echoing from within. Daryl slows as we walk by it, looking at the ground for a moment before bending down a few paces away, brushing dirt and bark off of something metal buried in the ground. I furrow my eyebrows as I watch him.

"What is it?" I ask, folding my arms over my chest.

Of course, he doesn't reply, just stands up again and scans the area as if looking for something. Then, without warning, he begins to walk with purpose towards an area of thick brush, dark leaves covering long, flimsy branches with ivy growing wildly, tangling itself in all that was near. He begins to pull at it all, working to move natures canopy and discover what it was keeping hidden, because as I watched him, I realized there was something beneath it all. I quickly jump in to help him and slowly, we uncover the back of a truck which is branded with the words 'Pattrick's Fuel Company'. I let out a small breathy laugh.

"Well, shit." I smile, trying to suppress my glee at both the luck that had graced us with its presence, and the sheer irony of what I saw in front of me. "Dwight would be so pissed if he knew." I laugh fully now, looking towards the man besides me who watches my hysteria silently.

"C'mon." Daryl says simply before turning away, pulling away more tree so that we can free the vehicle in front of us. I nod once as my laughter dies down and begin to help him again.

❊

**EDITED ✓**


	6. FIVE

Once we managed to get onto the road again it felt just a bit easier to breathe. I kept telling myself it was the smoke that still lingered in the air but, deep down, I knew it was the idea of the Savior's coming back and finding me again that was making me so uneasy. That, and the idea of Tina's body already decomposing under the dirt that I treaded so ruthlessly over. I knew it didn't matter anymore, that dwelling on these things wouldn't do me any good, but I had to remind myself why I was here, in this truck, with someone I barely knew and wasn't sure I could trust. It was better than being in that forest where they knew where to look for me, at least. But I was unsettled, and unable to enjoy the feel of the wind as it rushed past my open window, or the gentle humming of the engine in my ears as Daryl drove along the road in the seat next to me. We had still barely spoken to each other but in some ways, the near silence was nice. I wish I could have left it be for a while longer, but my paranoia was keeping my adrenaline high and I had to speak out.

"Where are we going?" I ask, watching the landscape as we pass in a blur of motion. He didn't reply verbally, but I heard the shifting of fabrics and assumed he had shrugged. I turn my head to look in his direction. He could probably feel my half gaze because he looked back at me fleetingly.

"We got separated not far from here." He says, his tone still as low and raspy as ever.

"There's a town not far from here. If you take the next exit on your left it should be more or less a straight shot from here." I nod my head towards the open road in front of us, sitting up and shifting in my seat now. "They could be there."

Daryl nods and takes the turning I pointed out to him, bringing us down less rural roads and towards the outskirts of the town. The one where I was supposed to split off from the others. The trees on either side of us begin to thin as we slowly pass by abandoned cars and building. There was a nagging voice in my head now, one that said I could still follow through with my original plan. All I had to do was make my excuses and be on my way. Daryl wouldn't bother to try and convince me to stay, why should he? But, after everything that had happened, I had to ask myself if that was really an option anymore.

"Keep an eye out." Daryl instructs me.

I nod, leaning out the window slightly to get a better look at our surroundings though it was obvious that this place hadn't seen human life in quite some time now. Daryl, however, begins to slow the truck down before coming to a halt outside of a group of tall buildings. I turn to him with furrowed eyebrows.

"There." He says, leaning across me to point out a white door that led into one of the complexes. Someone had used black spray paint to mark the door with a single word.

"Dixon?" I ask. "What's Dixon?"

"That's my last name." He grunts before opening his door and jumping out. I stare at the door for another second, taking in the subtle sign, then I follow him out.

He draws one of the knives from his belt and opens the door slowly with one arm, I take out the pocket knife stored in my trouser pocket and flip it open at both ends. It was the only weapon I had left now Dwight had taken my gun and although it wasn't as impressive, or indeed sharp, as the large blades Daryl kept on him, it was better than nothing and still had some use other than just being sentimental. We found ourselves creeping slowly along a darkened hallway, our footsteps muffled under the dirty carpet. A whistle bounced off the walls suddenly and caused our senses to go into high alert. I gripped the handle of the battered knife tightly as two figures emerged from behind a corner. One was large and tall, obviously male; the other smaller, slim, agile. This must have been Sasha and Abraham. My suspicions were proven correct when Daryl lowered his blade and stood up from his half crouch. I kept my weapon close to my chest.

"Took you long enough." A booming voice chuckled, coming from the man, Abraham. As they neared, I could begin to make out their features. The large man was dressed, weirdly, in a military-style formal jacket and blue, pressed trousers. His hair was vivid ginger and he sported a handlebar moustache of the same color. The other, indeed a female, had a dark complexion with large brown eyes and hair pulled back out of her face. She wore a simpler outfit of three-quarter length jeans and a T-shirt but had several holsters across her torso, waist and legs. Unlike the man, she stares past Daryl, directly at me, her eyes hard.

"Ran into a few problems." Daryl says vaguely.

"And whose she?" The girl, Sasha, says pointedly, her eyes never leaving mine. Daryl looks at me, as if he had momentarily forgotten my presence. He remains silent, staring and after a moment I realize he's waiting for me to speak.

"Wendy." I say bluntly, finally lowering my knife to my side, but keeping the blades open.

"We should get back, find out what happened to the others." Daryl says, cutting the tension, his words making Sasha's eyes finally swivel from my own as she nods in agreement.

I had expected Daryl to at least explain a bit about what had happened and why I was there, but I guess he was forever a man of few words and that wasn't about to change. I was, however, surprised that neither of them asked another question. They trusted his judgement without hesitation. Along with his intuition. They had waited it out here this whole time, somehow knowing that he would come looking for them, and be successful in finding them. This said more about him than anything else I had seen from him so far.

"We found some pretty sweet weapons 'round here." Abraham speaks up just as Daryl is about to turn back down the hallway. "We should load it up in that truck of yours, take it back with us." He juts his head towards the outside of the building. They must have seen us pull up.

"Alright." Daryl agrees, then he turns to me. "Take Sasha to the truck, open up the back." He orders before following Abraham. I simply nod and start back down the hallway, not checking to see whether the other girl was following me.

I hadn't realized how hot the inside of the building was until I was out in the open again, although the sun was still hot in itself, it wasn't nearly as suffocating as the sticky air, stuffy with rot and decay. I march round to the back of the fuel truck, lifting open the back with a large push that rattled the metal loudly. It was sure to attract the dead.

"Keep an eye out for those things." I said, barely glancing at the girl who stood behind me as I hoisted myself into the cargo hold. I heard her scoff, clearly now happy about being ordered around by me.

"Where did you come from?" She asks abruptly as I made my way through the space, checking for anything left behind. It was pretty much empty aside from some old cardboard boxes.

"Well," I mumble only just loud enough for her to hear me. "Ohio, originally."

"You know that's not what I meant." She says, her voice agitated. "You were just out here on your own when Daryl found you?"

"No..." I say turning back around to face her. "And we found him."

"We?" She narrows her eyes at me as I jump down onto the road.

"Yeah, I was with some people." I say, my expression bored as she continues to question me.

"Why aren't they with you now?" She continues to pry.

I shrug, not wanting to talk about any of them anymore, especially not with this girl who clearly had a problem with me. "Shit happens. They decided they were better off where we were before."

The door to the complex opens back up and the two men approach us with a few boxes in their arms. I spy an RPG case among them and raise my eyebrows at them. Neither of them say much as they set the boxes on the ground and head back inside for the rest.

"Seems like you're pretty lucky to find something like that out here." I nod towards the case after they've disappeared again. 

"Where were you before?" She ignores me and continues her questioning, her voice harsher now. I sigh and pick up the case before climbing back into the truck.

"I don't see why it matters much anymore," I say with a sigh as I keep my back to her while loading the weapons inside. "But since I know you're just gonna keep asking... we were with a group that didn't turn out to be as great as it initially seemed. So, we all decided to leave except they weren't going to let us go that easily." I let out a sound almost like a laugh, but there was nothing about my face that said I was trying to be humorous. I grabbed the next box and pulled it into the back.

"What does that mean?" Sasha asks now, clearly not done interrogating me.

"They came looking for us." I say bluntly, once again keeping my back to her though I could feel her eyes on me. There was a long silence before she spoke again.

"They ambush you?" She asks now, her voice suddenly tighter.

"Yeah."

I push the box aside and take a deep breath, suddenly feeling all that pent-up emotion come rising back up into my chest. It was getting harder to breathe again now. I couldn't tell if it was the blinding red of anger that was making me feel light headed, or the deep unwavering sorrow that crept up on me every once in a while, reminding me of all the mistakes I'd made and what they had cost me. I rested my hands on my knees for a second attempting to catch my breath and repress my thoughts, but a sound from behind me made me stiffen. The very distinct sound of a gun cocking. I groan inwardly, knowing what was coming and not having the energy to deal with it anymore. Slowly, I stand up and raise both my hands, still keeping my back to the woman that I knew had her gun trained one me.

"Whatever it is you think I did, I'm not gonna be able to fix it unless you tell me first." I call back to her with a calm tone.

"Turn around." She orders, her voice tight and sharp as if she was speaking through gritted teeth. I comply, not wanting to make things worse for myself.

Once I turn to face her, I see her eyes narrowed behind her gun as her aim remains trains steadily at my head. She juts her head to the side, silently telling me to get out of the truck which, again, I do without hesitation. Now on the ground she keeps me moving until we're at opposite ends with her back to the open back of the truck and myself, in surrender fully out in the open. Before either of us can say another word, the door to the complex opens up and the other two come out with the last of what they had been able to loot. Daryl and Abraham stop a few feet away from us as they take in the situation at hand. I dart my eyes towards Daryl, silently trying to tell him that I didn't do anything and hoping he would be able to help.

"What's goin' on 'ere?" He asks slowly, his accent suddenly seeming thicker and his eyes moving between us both.

"The people she's running from, they're the ones that ambushed us. The reason we got separated." Sasha spits, her words coming out short and fast as I watch her finger itching to reach for the trigger. "They're after you for a reason, what is it? What do they want from you?" She demands, taking a step closer to me. I back up quickly.

"Sasha..." Abraham reprimands her, though his tone is soft.

"They don't want anything from me."

"Ha! You expect me to believe that?" She narrows her eyes lower, her tone mocking.

"No." I admit, keeping my eyes moving between all three of them. "But it's the truth. Look, we took medicine, that's what they wanted and they're gonna get it back once the other two make their return. That's it. They won't bother looking for me after that, there's no reason for them to." I explain carefully, hoping my voice still sounded calm though I could feel the panic setting in as the adrenaline was released into my veins. I was not about to die at the hands of someone else over something so stupid.

"It's true, Sasha," Daryl's voice cuts in and I feel myself relax a bit at his broken silence. "I saw it, they had insulin and they took it with 'em. Took everything."

Feeling slightly more confident now knowing that he wasn't just going to let her shoot me, I speak up again. "I'm not a liability. I'm not like them, I-... I just want to start over." As I speak, I begin to hear the faint sounds of growling from behind me. I watch as Sasha's eyes dart to just besides me, the she repositions her gun only an inch and fires a shot that I could feel move past me. There's a thudding and then silence once more. She turns back to me.

"What you got on you?" She asks, lowering her gun but keeping her stance ready.

"Guns?" I ask, raising an eyebrow at her. "None." 

"Knife?" She prompts instantaneously. I feel my hands instinctively move to my back pocket but I keep my mouth shut tight, my jaw clenched as shake my head silently while she watches on. "Hand it over." She says calmly, though I could still hear the edge to her voice.

"Sasha, is this really necessary?" Abraham tires to intervene but she barely even looks at him as he steps forward.

"That's my one condition." She says unwaveringly, her dark eyes firmly on mine. "She can come, along as she's unarmed." She shrugs as if it's that simple. But I wasn't. They had no way of knowing, of course, but I wasn't about to give up the only thing I had left that actually meant something and if that meant giving up on this then I would. I know I said I would try, Tina, but I can't let go. My hand tightens around the handle in my pocket.

"You really think I can take on all three of you alone, with a knife?" I scoff incredulously, my tone all too challenging.

"Hand it over." She repeats.

"No." I respond quietly, avoiding looking at any of them now as I curled my hands into fists, feeling that overwhelming feeling of dread overcome me.

"Excuse me?"

"No," I say louder now, my words sharper and harder. "I almost lost it before, I'm not gonna let that happen again." I say without filter, unable to stop the words from being out in the open now that they have left my mouth. I felt my ears burn red as I realize what I had said. Too much.

"Wendy." Daryl's voice sounded so unfamiliar with this one word that I had never heard him utter before. My own name. It sounded so foreign coming from his mouth with that southern drawl. I instinctively look to him, a little caught off guard. "You can 'ave it back as soon as we get to where we're goin' and know ya safe." His words are simple and perhaps said a little softer than any other time he had spoken to me. I had to wonder if this was because of what I let slip. I feel the wood against my palm and slowly pull the knife out of my pocket, turning it over in my hand and taking in its shape, its feel, one more time. Just in case they were lying. Daryl had never lied to me before, that much I knew, but there again we had known each other barely a day.

I take a few steps towards him and hold the folded pocket knife in my hand, I lift my eyes to meet his. "I'd better." Is all I can bring myself to say before stepping back. He looks to Sasha who, seemingly satisfied, holsters her gun again and nods once before turning back to the truck.

"Let's go." Daryl dismisses before following her lead to finish loading the truck so that we could all get out of here. I was all for it, the sooner we got to wherever they were from, the sooner I would get my knife back. That is, if they are really telling the truth.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	7. SIX

Daryl kept the walkie close to him the entire time, steering with one hand so that he could keep hold of it in the other. Every now and then he would bring it up to his mouth, calling for someone to pick up. Anyone. He was getting desperate now, that much I could tell. It made me nervous for several reasons, but mainly because it was clear that something had happened before the three had gotten split up, and now they were unsure as to what exactly they were heading back to. The silence from the other end of the walkie only made the tension that surrounded us all even more undeniable. I was just glad I wasn't sat next to Sasha, thankfully she was fully obstructed by Abraham's muscular form, though I was sure she was still glaring daggers into me.

"Rick, you copy?" Daryl talks into the walkie again besides me, keeping his eyes on the road as his arm hung lazily on the wheel. I watched him from the corner of my eye silently. "Anybody?" He asks again, making me frown as the only reply he receives is the hiss of static. 

"Did something happen?" I ask finally, unable to keep myself from voicing my suspicion. He glances at my raised eyebrows for a second before looking behind me at the other two, having some sort of silent conversation that I couldn't comprehend. Just as I think he's about to speak, we're all startled by the sound of something other than static rising from the walkie's speakers. It wasn't legible, but there was definitely someone on the other end. I stared at it in his hand as he brings it back up to his mouth.

"Say it again." He told the device.

We waited, all four of us, as static hissed out for a moment longer, only to be cut off by a voice.

"Help." It whimpered before fading to static again.

I looked at Daryl with wide eyes and then to Sasha and Abraham. No one said a word, but Daryl's foot pressed harder on the gas, making the trucks old engine shudder and push along the roads quicker than they had been before. That one word was enough to send a chill down my spine. Whoever was on the other end sounded terrified. My mind could only associate that kind of fear with one thing. Daryl hadn't known who the Saviors were when he helped us back in the burnt forest. That fact alone gave me hope that this place, their community, had somehow remained discrete enough to not be picked up on by _him..._ for now at least. But what we had heard on the walkie had made my blood turn to ice in my veins as my mind raced to connect the distress call with the Saviors. It seemed a pessimistic thing to think, but I knew that once they caught wind of another community existing, they wouldn't waste time in recruiting them to work underneath the Sanctuary. Despite this, I knew there was absolutely nothing to suggest that the Saviors had anything to do with it what was happening back at their community. But whatever was going on, it didn't sound good and I suddenly found myself wondering whether I had made a mistake. I would never even consider going back to Sanctuary now, but throwing in with these people... was it really the right decision? I know I had made a promise, but that promise was to a dead girl. This would affect me, not her.

"What in the holy shit..." Abraham's voice catches me off guard and makes me focus back in on the present. My heart jumps in my chest as I look out the windscreen. On the road in front of us, blocking our path there is a large group of people. I take in the motorcycles and leather jackets that they wear, all signs that pointed to these people being Saviors, signs that once made me believe Daryl was one, too. But I knew I wasn't mistaken this time.

Daryl brings the truck to a stop a couple of feet in front of them. I don't think I had taken a single breath since I'd seen their figures in the distance, it was like my lungs had forgotten their function. They were screaming for air, but my brain was too focused on trying to contain the panic I felt taking over my body and neglected to keep my breathing regular. Perhaps my own thoughts had been enough to tempt fate, to lead us right into their path again. Or maybe this was always how it was going to be and I was just stupid for thinking that I could escape it. I doubted Dwight and Sherry had made it back yet, that meant there could still be groups out searching. Groups like the one in front of us. If they saw me and realized who I was, it would be over. All of it would have been for nothing.

"Why don't you come on out, join us on the road?" The Savior in the front, obviously the leader of the group, called out to us. The others exchanged glances but I still couldn't move.

I stared, transfixed by the group. I scanned each face individually, wondering who it would be to seal my fate. But I realized then that I didn't recognize any of them. They were definitely Saviors, but not any I had come into contact with before. Perhaps they had been stationed at a different outpost? If that's the case, then there's a chance they don't know about me or the code orange. Suddenly, the others make a move and it's only when they start exiting the truck that I finally realize I have to get out, too. Carefully, I follow behind Sasha and Abraham out of the right side, hanging my head low so that I was staring at the floor, using my hair to obstruct the features of my face. I wasn't sure if any of them would recognize me, but I wasn't keen on finding out.

"That's great. It's going well right out of the gate." The man continues. As we stood there, lined up before them all, I eyed him with a watchful gaze wanting desperately to appear invisible in that moment. But there was never a moment in my life that I felt more watched and transparent in front of others than I did when I was with the Saviors. "Now step two, hand over your weapons." He smiled, motioning with his hand.

"Why should we?" Daryl glared at him, his voice challenging.

"Well, they're not yours." The man shrugs as if it was obvious.

"Whose are they?" Sasha's voice asked now.

The man lost all trace of expression from his face. "Your property now belongs to _Negan_."

I clenched my jaw tightly. Such a small action, but I felt like everyone had seen it. I forced my head back down and stared at my shoes while my hair fell over my face again. I didn't want anyone to see the reaction I had to hearing that name. Not Daryl or Sasha or Abraham, and certainly not the Saviors. That fucking name. I never wanted to hear it, speak it, or even think it ever again. It belonged to someone who had not only wronged me, but who had made me feel as though my life didn't belong to me anymore. Just being out here, being alive, I was showing him I was still in control and I needed to hold onto that.

"And if you can get your hands on a tanker, your people our person wants to know. So, let's get those side arms, shall we?" The Savior continues, taking several steps forward to approach Daryl who stares the man down, taking out his gun and handing it over forcefully. It was then I remembered that I was completely unarmed and instinctively my hand goes to my back pocket which is now void of its usual weight. I feel a heavy dread wash over me.

"Thank you." The Savior smiles at Daryl.

Then it's me he turns to. I can hear his footsteps getting closer as I keep my head down, my heart wildly beating against my rib cage as all the possible scenes play out in my mind, one after another within a few seconds. I see myself looking at him, his face going rigid with a cold expression then, without even blinking he'd shoot me dead. Or maybe he'd juts knock me out, take me to Negan who would make an example out of me like he did so many others. I imagined Dwight and Sherry within the watchful crowd of spectators who would be forced to witness my demise. They'd look on with blank expressions while I was beaten, or burned, or worse. And even in death, I wouldn't be free. I'd be forced into eternal labor for the man that had ruined me, tied to the fence outside Sanctuary and used as a guard dog until my corpse became nothing but decomposing flesh.

He whistles loudly and I instinctively look up, his face mere inches from mine. I look at him with wide eyes as he takes in my figure, his eyebrows raised with a questioning look. "No gun? You must have a lot of faith in your friends." He says with a bored shrug before moving on to Sasha and Abraham.

I let out a short breath as he walks away from me, fully aware that the fear was evident in my face. I could feel Daryl's eyes on me again, but I couldn't bring myself to care. He didn't recognize me. They didn't know, and I wanted to keep it that way. Mustering up all the confidence I had left, I held my head up now and faced the group of men blocking our path.

"Who are you people?" Sasha questions.

"I get the curiosity, but we have questions ourselves. And we'll be the one asking them, while we drive you back to wherever it is you call home. Take a gander at where you hand your hats." He explains, turning to face us once more. I catch Daryl's eye quickly, silently trying to tell him that we needed to do something, and quick. "First though; your shit. What have you got for us?" He smiles with mock sincerity, something which makes my skin crawl. They enjoyed this.

"Yeah, you just took it." I hear Daryl snarl from besides me. The Savior shakes his head silently, as if dealing with a difficult child that just couldn't understand the concept of following the rules.

"Come on. I mean, can we not, okay?" He sighs exasperatedly. "There's more. There is always more."

Only silence follows as we all stand there. All three of my new companions glare straight at the group, their contempt unwavering and plain to see. Backing down and giving in wasn't an option anymore, and I had confidence that this could still go our way. The fact that they didn't recognize me in itself is nothing short of a miracle and I had seen what Daryl could do, he was quick thinking. I had no doubt that the other two were the same. Still, without so much as a knife, there wasn't much I could do myself.

"T... take my man to the back of the truck, start inside the back bumper, work your way to the front." The lead Savior sits back down on his bike as another, T, takes long purposeful strides forward. He pushes Daryl's chest and forces him to move. I look up and watch as he drags Daryl behind the truck while he continues to resist, pulling his arm away from the man. Defiant, angry. I close my eyes and breathe deep, hoping that he'll think of something. My hand brushes my back pocket again and I mentally curse myself for giving it up.

"Whose Negan?" Abraham asks now as I let my eyes dart around me, looking for something, anything, that could help us.

"Ding, dong, Hell's bells." The Savior's voice rings out in a singsong tone as his gun clicked, aimed straight at his head and making my eyes still on the scene. "You see usually we introduce ourselves by just popping one of you right off the bat, but you seem like reasonable people. I mean, your sporting dress blues for Christ's sake! And like I said, we're gonna drive you back to where you were. I mean, do you know how awkward it is carpooling with someone whose friend or friends you just killed? Oof." He makes a face, shaking his head again. I begin to shift my weight nervously as he continues to talk. "But I told you, not to ask any questions. And then what does this ginger do?"

There's a long silence in which I can feel the situation growing in intensity. I still for a moment, checking the surrounding woods from the corner of my eye. The trees are thick and close knit. If I wanted to, I could make a break for it. Run and just keep running until I'm far enough away that they wont bother to follow me anymore, hell the trees would even get in the way of their bullets and provide enough of a shield so that I could make my get away. They were distracted. I could do it...

"So that's that. I don't want you to get the wrong impression of me." The Savior clicks the hammer of his gun and takes aim. My eyes make quick succession between the woods and the two people who were friends with the man who had undeniably saved my life. I bit my lip in contemplation. He was going to shoot Abraham. I knew how this went. Could I really use that as the distraction to aid my own get away? Sasha would surely suffer for it also, and Daryl... what was he thinking?

"Wait!" The desperation in Sasha's voice keeps me from my internal moral dilemma. I could hear her heavy breaths from where I stood, a good few meter away. "Wait... You don't have to do this." She keeps her eyes steadily trained on the man. His face hardens as he brings another gun from his jacket, never letting their eye contact break.

"Shut up." Abraham voices my thoughts as I freeze all over again, keeping my jaw firmly clenched.

"I am talking to the man." I hear her mutter, her voice dangerously low.

"No, you're not." The Savior smiles, taking aim on both of them now. Once again, I hear the hammer click, my feet seemingly stuck to the ground and my eyes unable to look away from what was happening. If I wanted to run, I had to do it when those triggers were pulled. But his hands suddenly relax and fall to his sides. "I'm not gonna kill you."

I could hear the release of breath from the pair adjacent to me. I dart my eyes around the side of the truck, hoping to catch a glimpse of Daryl, but I don't see anything. I listen to the long silence that settles upon us all. Nothing.

"Wait, wait." The Savior speaks up again after a moment. "You know what?" I physically look to him now, watching how his eyes spark and flash with something malicious and sadistic...

_Enjoyment._

"Yes, I am."

The words have barely left his lips when the explosion happens, throwing my whole body back and leaving me crumpled on the floor. My palms lay flat on the tarmac, trying to catch my fall but my head smacked hard on the ground making my vision foggy and blurred at the edges. My ears start ringing with the intensity of the sound. I bring my head up, blinking hard to regain my sight, catching only glimpses of bright orange and yellow flames, the heat hitting me with its full force. There were no screams, no cries, probably no pain. It all happened way too quick for any of them to have realized what was happening, but as I watched the fire subside my nose was tickled with the aroma of burning flesh and smoke, making my stomach turn in on itself. I gagged.

As I began to sit up, Daryl emerged from behind the truck. My mind slowly catches up to what just happened and I register the RPG he has perched on his shoulder as he watches the flames, his face expressionless. I stare wide eyed at the man in front of me from my place on the ground, breathing heavily. Sasha and Abraham cough and grunt as they begin to stand, bringing me from my amazed horror. I pull myself together and stand once more, my body aching from being thrown to the floor.

"Son of a bitch was tougher than he looked." Daryl says, turning his back to us where a stain of red was clearly beginning to spread across the back of his leather jacket, right where one of the wings was embroidered, the material ripped from what looked like a knife wound.

"Did he cut you?" Sasha asks, her breathing still heavy.

"A little." He shrugs. "What a bunch of assholes."

Sasha takes out a cloth and presses it to Daryl's wound, a large smile plastered on her face. I didn't blame her but I couldn't bring myself to smile. I remained where I stood, clutching my waist with both hands, just staring into space, my eyes slightly wider than usual. I could feel the guilt coming over me, for wanting to use the execution of two people as a distraction so that I could live. And what made it worse was that they were friends with the man who had saved me two, no three times now. I felt sick and my head was pounding from the impact of hitting the ground.

"Let's get you fixed up at home." Sasha smiles brightly at Daryl, patting his arm slightly as he walks to the truck with an ambled walk.

"Yes, ma'am."

Abraham comes up behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder and startling me. He smiles also, patting me gently before passing by. I hang back and watch the two get into the truck, unable to get the image of their bodies lying on the ground, dead with gunshot wounds to the temple, out of my head. Daryl turns back to me, noticing that I was still stood there, utterly still. He comes to stand in front of me, his eyes conveying the emotion he tried to conceal.

"Did you know 'em?" He asks quietly in a harsh, low tone. His body was so close to mine I had to look up at him to meet his eyes.

I simply shake my head. "Never seen them before."

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	8. SEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that reads my stuff, it really means a lot to me! I hate to be that person but don't forget to comment cause it lets me know if you're enjoying the story. ALSO follow me on tumblr (@casualgnome) for updates and stuff, I'd love to answer any questions or just get to know you all!

Darkness was beginning to settle in around us as we drove, the silence giving me time to lose myself in thought. I hadn't technically lied to them. I really didn't know who any of those Saviors were. I just knew they were Saviors. And what did it even matter now, they were all dead. Their flesh would forever be melted to the tarmac now and Negan would never know about it. But the possibility that he would somehow find out still poked at my conscience restlessly, making me unconsciously pick at the skin around my nails until I caught myself and stopped. I repressed a shudder, reliving all the memories I had of Sanctuary that made my head spin and my stomach clench.

Daryl was driving fast, his attention solely on getting back to their home to find out what was going on there, but I still felt as though he was watching me. He had his suspicions about me. They all did, and they had a right to. He was seemingly satisfied with my answer to his question earlier, not bothering to question me further, but I could see that he still wasn't entirely convinced. Every time I stole a glance at him, he was just staring out into the inky darkness of the roads, intent on getting back. He wasn't paying any attention to me, and yet I couldn't help feeling like they knew everything. I dismissed it as guilt and tired to ignore it, but the paranoia fed off my fears; if we ran into more of them, would we be as lucky as before?

Surely not, my luck had to be running dry by now. So, would I ditch them if I had no other choice? Yes, of course. I was self-aware enough to know that I would choose myself over anyone else and now that I had had time to think it over, it was clear that if that was the only way out, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. Self-preservation has been my only driving force for so long that I've become a coward, I knew this for a fact. I just chose not to think about it. Thinking about it would mean having to accept the person I've become, having to accept all the times I've sacrificed others to save myself. It was just instinct to do what was necessary to survive and I was used to that by now.

_"We have to look out for each other, as human beings. We should be working together to survive, not point guns at one another and creating war."_

I sink in on myself as I recall Tina's words, feeling the guilt that had begun to subside come back at full force. Sweet Tina with her unrelenting optimism that made me want to believe her, to believe that there were still good people left. And again, I look to Daryl, because despite everything, he had helped me. It had to be different this time. I would make it different. I wasn't going to let my guard down like I had with _him,_ I was going to wait and observe, make sure that this place was really what they said it was. And if it wasn't, I'd be gone before they even knew it. But if it was... then I would try, just like I said I would. But for now, I had to keep my mouth shut about everything to do with the Saviors and what kind of places are out there, that was my advantage.

In the distance, the headlights of the truck caught on a gate, shut up tight and secured. The surrounding area was eerie and even before any of us had seen it, we could all tell something was wrong. As we neared, it became clear what had happened.

"Oh my god..." I heard Sasha breathe heavily.

As we inched closer my mouth became dry, like someone had stuffed sand in my mouth to absorb all the moisture and every word that I had formed in the back of my throat disintegrated into nothingness. The scene in front of us was anarchy. There was a horde of them, all pouring into the same broken part of the steel wall erected around the community. A building seemed to have collapsed on top of it, giving free entry to any roamer that happened to be in the area. But the sheer number of them... I had never seen so many in one place at the same time.

"Why is there so many?" I manage to ask, my voice barely above a whisper as Daryl kept us moving at a snail's crawl towards the gate. My eyes were transfixed on the scene, watching them all amble inside, unable to tell if there was anyone still left alive.

"We were redirecting a horde." Sasha explains airily, her eyes also firmly fixed on the horde. "Rick said some of them had broken off and were heading to Alexandria." She turns her head quickly to Abraham, her face one of concern for everyone inside.

"That must have been where the horn we heard was coming from, the one that drew them here." Abraham pointed to the debris of the collapsed tower where the outline of a truck could clearly be seen. Someone had clearly driven it directly into the building, causing it to collapse and take the wall with it.

Despite my best efforts to say something, my mouth only seemed to become drier as I stared at the wreckage. Daryl too, remained silent though I saw a tightness in his jaw that hadn't been there before. He pulls up to the gates and stops the truck. Abraham wastes no time in getting out and heading towards the back, Sasha swiftly follows him. I watch the roamers as my mind screams at me that this was _his_ doing. But I knew that couldn't be true, it just didn't make any sense. He had always said people were a resource, he wouldn't...

I clear my throat and turn to Daryl again. "This isn't exactly what I was expecting." I say, leaning my arms against the dashboard to watch the stray roamer who had noticed us and started banging on the hood of the truck. He turns to face me full on.

"If ya want out, now's the time to go." He shrugs, watching my expression. I stiffen, once again wondering just how much he had figured out about me already. I turn away from his gaze.

"No, I said I would try and I meant that." I say, my voice tighter now as I watch the roamer struggling to reach for us. "How many people are inside?" I ask as I sit up once again, feeling for my knife which isn't there again and ultimately dropping my hand.

"A lot." He replies bluntly, watching my hand as I move it away from my pocket again. "You're gonna need this." He reasons after a moments silence, fishing into his own pocket and bringing out my pocket knife. I smile upon seeing it and take it gratefully, feeling reassured by its weight in my palm.

"So, what's your plan?" I ask, flicking one blade out and running my fingers over the wood absentmindedly.

"Get that gate open." Daryl says gruffly. I look up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Care to elaborate on exactly _how_ you're going to do that?" Before he can answer, Abraham comes knocking on his side window. Daryl unwinds it and we both watch as he produces two of the weapons, ones that he and Sasha had found while waiting for Daryl to turn up.

"Sasha and I are gonna climb onto the roof and try to get someone's attention. Get them to open them gates." He smirks boastfully, his moustache curving comically around his mouth. "Think you can get us a bit closer?" Daryl nods in reply before winding up the window again.

Before long we can hear the faint sounds of footsteps above us on the roof. We inch forwards again until we're as close as we can get to the gate, we hear a scrambling of feet above and soon the sounds of round after round of bullets being fired into the horde that awaits inside fill the not-so-silent night air. There's a pause, and just above the noises of the undead I hear Abraham's booming voice. Another rounds of bullets. Then, the gate begins to move aside in a hasty manner.

As it gets moved aside I catch my first glimpses of the world behind them, the flickering headlights creating a yellow glow that illuminates only parts of what is in front of us; the steel wall that stretches on to our left and the long road that runs alongside it, trees on the right in their full green glory and just beyond them I glimpse the reflection of some of the houses in what looks like a small lake. It was universes away from what Sanctuary was. But that shouldn't have been my main concern in this moment, because seeing the inside of the community I knew this was worse than anything I've seen since this all began. Everywhere you looked they were there, hundreds of roamers blocking the roads, trampling over what was once a nicely mowed lawn. It was like the beginning all over again. Chaos. Daryl inched the truck forward until coming to a sudden, lurching stop.

I tear my eyes away from the scene in front of me and look at him, watching as he looks towards the top of the wall. A guard-tower-like structure is erected aside the steel wall, flimsy and barely withstanding its own personal crowd of roamers who are fixated on the two women atop it. Daryl at once unwinds the window once more and yells up to Sasha and Abraham. "Can you get at them?"

"We're on it!" I hear Sasha's reply faintly over the growls and moans of the horde.

While we're stationary a man runs in front of the headlights, the one that had opened the gates for us. I only caught a glimpse of him but he soon opens the passenger's side door and gets in besides us, out of breath and relieved. He was young, maybe mid-twenties, clearly Asian with dark hair and eyes, and a pale complexion. He was sweating and covered in dirt and blood with a withered look that made him look far older. He had the scrawny but strong build a lot of people sported these days. The body of someone that's had to fight for their life every day for the last few years on nothing but scraps of food. That's something we've all experienced in the new world. The aching bodies, bruised and broken. The stabs of hunger that grab at you like cold, long fingers digging their nails into your stomach. He catches my eye and stares with a confused expression, but before he can say anything-

"What the hell happened?" Daryl asks the guy.

"I don't know, I just got back." He answers between breaths. His eyes dart to the horde in front of us then back to me.

"Who's she?" He asks now as his tries to control his labored breathing. The guy looked rough, unsurprisingly as only minutes ago he'd been completely surrounded by roamers. He's lucky we got here when we did, and that Abraham and Sasha have pretty good aim for that matter.

I smile at him endearingly. "My names Wendy, thought you guys looked like you could use some extra help."

His eyes switch between me and Daryl who's only response is "It's a long story." which he mutters in what I'm beginning to realize is his usual manner.

He seems to hesitate for a second before answering, "I'm Glenn." He pauses to breathe a few more labored breaths and look upon the anarchy he'd just escaped from. "Listen... we can- we can lead some of them away, but they're scattered." He launches straight into the matter at hand.

"Nah, we'll get 'em all together, we won't have to lead 'em away." Daryl says, slapping the roof of the truck, letting the others know that we'd be moving again.

"What are you thinking?" I ask him as we start moving slowly through the crowds of the dead. I agreed with him, it was best to get rid of as many as we could while we could, but just how we were going to do that was a different matter.

"A fire." He says, glancing at me briefly. "It'll draw them all to the same place, they'll walk straight into it."

"Like the forest..." I murmur quietly as I begin to realize where he's going with this plan.

"How are we going to be able to start a fire big enough to get their attention without burning everything down?" Glenn interjects quickly. Even as he says it, Daryl pulls the truck up close to the bank of the lake, turning to back up to the water's edge. I feel everything click into place in my mind as I answer him simply;

"The lake."

Suddenly our doors are flying open, Glenn and I swiftly disposing of the surrounding roamers that have taken notice of us as I hear Daryl's gruff tone telling Abraham to get ready to move the truck forward when he gives the signal. The others dismount from the roof of the vehicle and join in the fight; Sasha and the two other women who I had yet to catch more of a hurried glimpse of. Deciding that they are more than capable of handling the situation here, I round the side of the truck and find Daryl unloading petrol into the lake. I check the surrounding, finding them clear I step over him to open up the back of the truck and climb inside. I pick up an automatic rifle and fling the strap over my body to secure it before going back for the RPG used earlier by Daryl on the Saviors.

I was running on auto-pilot. Barely thinking about anything I was doing, just knowing it was what had to be done. Blindly rushing into the danger for people I didn't know? That was something I didn't usually do, except I felt like I owed Daryl this at the very least. For bringing me here, probably against his better judgement and trusting me despite everything. He was giving me the chance to make good on my promise and I wasn't going to waste the opportunity. But if I was ever going to do that, then this place had to survive tonight. Usually, somewhere would be considered a write-off, but seeing the determination in all of their faces made me believe that this place wasn't going down just yet.

I jump back down to onto the bank just as Daryl was standing up. He eyes the RPG with an odd look. "You know how to use that thing?" He questions me in a bemused tone.

"Absolutely no clue," I admit, taking a step closer and shoving the weapon towards him. "But you do."

He takes it from me and motions for me to follow him. Slowly, he begins to climbed up onto the roof of the truck, and I don't hesitate to follow, wanting to get off the ground quickly. The others tried to keep the roamers off us as we positioned ourselves but that didn't stop one from grabbing my ankle and throwing me off balance. I brought my foot back and kicked it square in the jaw, probably unhinging it completely but it only staggered and remained fixed on getting at me once more. I quickly aim and shot it down, watching it fall back onto the muddied banks of the lake, bleeding congealed, blackened blood that oozed over green grass in the shadowy gloom of the dark night.

It was cold now, freezing even. Despite the unbearably hot days once the sun set the warm air quickly evaporated into a biting wind. Yet, tonight there was a stickiness to the atmosphere, an undeniable warmth that seemed to come in waves. Being on top of the truck gave us the advantage of height and I was able to see everything within the community's walls; the houses, the trees, the roads, the church, the beginnings of a garden. I was seeing it wholly for the first time. It and its people. They weren't, however, in their homes, huddled together in fear like you would assume. No, they were in the streets, among the dead. So much so you could hardly tell who was alive and who wasn't. Mainly, my eyes were drawn to a group who were stood in a circle, back to back, one man clearly yelling out orders or encouragement, maybe both. It was hard to tell; I couldn't hear them over the unbearably loud noises of the dead, but they were fighting back, fully and without hesitation. It was incredibly ballsy, in my opinion. And incredibly stupid, considering the situation. Yet none of them seemed close to giving up or to giving in to fatigue. And more people were joining. Stepping out from their hiding places to join in the battle to save their home from the undead. I had never seen anything quite like it.

My eyes suddenly landed on one man. He was struggling against one walker as another caught his attention, blooded and exhausted he practically froze as his mind began to panic. I watched it all unfold from atop the moving truck which suddenly came to a halt as Daryl got ready to set the lake ablaze. In that instant I stood up, I took aim towards the man and fired, hoping to god he wouldn't suddenly move. The roamer he was struggling with feel against him, quickly going limp and forcing him to push it away. Even in the dark, from this distance I could see the surprise on his features before the roamer behind him caught up and he swiveled quickly, back into action and stuck his blade through its temple. Once they were taken care of his eyes became searching, landing on me after a second as he stared in confusion, then I managed to make out the curve of a smile on his face in the gloom. I smiled back and gave him a two fingered salute before watching him turn back to his battle with his people.

A hand on my shoulder. One I almost shot at before realizing it could only be Daryl. "You might wanna cover your ears." He shouts above all the noise around us. I nod, watching him aim the RPG while placing my palms over my ears.

One shot. There was a large splash and an explosion which started a fire that sent shadows into dancing frenzies along the sides of buildings. I slowly lowered my hands and watched as the crackling flames grew higher, attracting the attention of every one of those things. Slowly they began to walk into the lake, mindlessly burning as the growling grew louder while they passed us by, no longer concerned with us, but the large orange light that lit up the community. The heat was sudden and sweltering, yet I took another step forward to be next to Daryl. We watched for a second before I cut our silence with a laugh.

"Well, I'll be darned, Dixon." I smile, the orange and yellow hue of the flames washing over my face. "It actually worked."

He turns towards me and raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, well we're not done yet." He says simply before turning and hopping down to the hood of the truck. I steal one last glance at the lake before following after him.

"What's the plan here? Just slice up as many of those things as we can?" I shout to him as he jumps down from the truck and does exactly that; jams his knife into the skull of a roamer who seemed all too interesting in him all of a sudden instead of the flames he had previously been ambling towards.

"You got a better one?" He turns back to me as I, too, land back on the grassy bank.

"Maybe covering that breach in the wall would be a good start." I point out as I wave my hand towards the collapsed building. "They'll only keep coming in, even if it just slows them down it's better than nothing." He looks behind me for a moment, seemingly thinking for a half moment before realizing that I actually had a good point.

"Reckon the truck has enough fuel left in it?" He says, rhetorically.

I nod and jump back into the passenger's side hastily. I still had the rifle on my back so I carefully pull it off and rest it on the floor near my feet. My head was pounding with the rush of adrenaline, and probably the hit I took early, but I didn't have time to stop and think about it now. Daryl got in the driver's side and started the engine again which spluttered reluctantly before kicking into action. We really weren't that far from the collapsed segment, but we were driving against a thousand corpses who were all heading towards the fire in the lake, incapsulated by the orange glow and flickering flames that jumped high into the air and crashed down again with a single gust of wind. The darkness made it harder to see the damage but even in the shallow head lights of the truck you could see that at least two panels from the wall had completely collapsed and a ton of debris from the fallen building was heaped on the ground.

"Go from the left." I say, picking up the rifle. "That's where the largest opening is. They'll have to climb the debris to get in from the right." I open the door quickly and jump out.

"Where are you goin'?" He questions.

"To move that shit out the way." I say obviously before slamming the door and jogging to the pile of rubble.

I could feel him watching me as the engine remained idling behind me. I had the feeling he still wasn't entirely sure about me, but I couldn't worry about that right now. A growl grabs my attention and I swiftly swing the rifle around and set off a round of bullets into a pair of roamers coming at me. I had said I would help, and that's exactly what I was doing. Whether or not Daryl believed me wasn't really something I could change right now, and it wasn't that important. Actions speak louder than words after all.

I begin to pick up bits of the debris, shoving it to one side. Timber, roof tiles, wooden planks, and bricks all thrown out the way hastily. I quickly move my attention back to the pile and move a couple more of the bricks. The red hue of the tail lights illuminate my surroundings as Daryl backs the truck next to the opening. I pick up some sort of pillar and haul it to one side with great strain, but it was too heavy for me alone and slips out of my grasp-  
A sharp pain causes me to drop the pillar with a loud crash. I grab my arm with my good hand and let out a strangled cry. In the glow of flames from the lake I can make out a deep cut in my hand that's gushing blood. I wince and dig my nails into my wrist, breathing deeply.

"Shit." I murmur through gritted teeth, trying to keep an eye on my surroundings while also stopping the blood. The shuffling of feet catches me off guard and suddenly I'm holding off a roamer as it goes for me, snarling and gnashing its rotting teeth in my face, grabbing at my clothes as I push with all my might to get it away from me, my hand throbbing along with my head. I manage to throw it down to the ground and go straight for my knife in my back pocket, flipping it open and driving the blade through its eye.

But I can hear another from behind me and quickly scramble to pull it back out. My hand slips, blood staining the wooden handle and it grabs hold of me. I twist around and kick at it, falling against the rubble, my head feeling like it was going to burst with the pressure of the impact. I could feel my heart beating erratically in my chest all too well. It made my ears ring and my body shake uncontrollably as the roamer pulled at my leg, then my hand, then-  
It fell dead. A knife driven into its balding, rotten head. A knife that no one was holding on to. I fell back against the uneven ground and breathed in, the rifle digging into my spine. Nothing but smoke filled my lungs but it felt good to just breathe. Daryl walked over and picked out his knife from the roamer's skull, watching me closely.

"I'm fine." I say bitterly. "Thanks for asking." I push myself up with my good hand and retrieve my own knife with a sharp yank that draws slippery, sticky gore from the eye socket of the roamer it was in. I wipe it across my jeans in disgust.

"That stupid little thing is gonna get you killed if you're not careful." He says, walking up behind me. I turn to face him.

"I'll have you know this 'stupid little thing' has gotten me out of more than its fair share of sticky situations." I state matter-of-factly, holding it in his face before snapping it shut.

"Take this one." He says gruffly, holding his knife out to me by the handle. "I have another." He continues to which he pulls out another from his holster.

I pocket my own knife before taking what he held out to me slowly. "Okay... but only if you show me how to throw it like you did." I say, a smile slowly crawling into my lips.

"Maybe some other time." He grunts before pushing past me and heading into the thick of the herd.

I look back at the truck, it was parked as close to the wall as anyone could get it, backed up against the pile of rubble on which a few walkers were attempting to climb, but doing so very slowly. I was right, it was better than nothing. My hand was throbbing in pain at my side. I looked down at my clothes, there wasn't much I could use as a make shift bandage, but I ripped a strip from the bottom of my shirt and tied it as securely as I could. _It would have to do for now_ , I thought as I turned back to the crowds of the dead in front of me. It had thinned out, a lot of them had fallen into the lake by now but even so, there was a long night ahead.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	9. EIGHT

The sun rose and shed light onto the gruesome scene within the community's walls; the stench of death lingered in the air and only grew in intensity as the day began to get hotter with every passing hour. And there was nowhere you could go to escape it as you could scarcely take a step without having to walk over a body. They were everywhere. In the streets they lay in pools of their own blood which stained the concrete beneath them, on the grassy banks they were crumpled in piles like old discarded clothes, even in the lake, burned and blackened like charcoal they floated to the surface where they remained.

The sun had long since reached its peak now, bringing with it the beginning of the end of a long and tireless battle. Slowly, people put down their weapons and gave in to their fatigue. The worst was over, had been over for some time but they had refused to quit until not one of those things remained wandering in their streets. Tired limbs moved on their own, bringing their owners to the obvious place; the infirmary, as Daryl had informed me the building was being used as. It was here that the people of the community congregated. We had all been told that the worst injuries were to be treated first, the rest had to wait. And wait they did. Each and every person sat outside that infirmary and silently mourned what they had lost. They sought comfort in each other, for they had all lost something last night.

All except me.

I lingered in the distance and watched as Daryl disappeared behind the infirmary door to be with his people. I felt a spike in anxiety at the thought of going over there, a pang of guilt sneaking up my spine. I didn't belong here. I had no more to grieve today than I had the day prior, no reason to cry or seek comfort from these strangers.

I looked down at my hand in its crude excuse of a blood-soaked bandage and turned around, walking away from the gathering. It wasn't a life-threatening wound. It could wait until everyone else had gone. I decided to take this time to wander the community in its entirety, skirting around the perimeter of the walls before working my way inwards under the pretense that I was checking for any stuck roamers, of which I found a few, but nothing extreme. However, in reality I was just nosey.

Even though the houses were stained with blood and gore, and the windows more often than not smashed in some areas, I could still see the remains of the 'white picket fence' neighborhood this place would have been before the world went to shit. It reminded me of the cul-de-sac my brother and I would walk past on the way to school, the one we often made up stories about one day living in. We'd have a large, impressive house that others would envy and the kind of neighbors that brought round cookies in the afternoons. I wondered if that place was anything like it used to be or if, like everything else in the world, it had crumbled down to nothing but broken windows and rusting door handles. In my young mind, places like that could never be touched by tragedy, that was the appeal of living there. But in reality, wasn't I standing within a place that disproved that entirely?

Slowly, my feet brought me back to the banks of the lake. I tiptoed long the edges for a while before coming to a halt. I stared for a minute, at the sight of blackened bodies bobbing along in the ripples of the water, lifeless and silent as the wind moved them along. Occasionally, they would bounce into one another or even into the sides of the bank, one even coming close to my own feet. Once upon a time these bodies had been people, a someone that had a story. Before they had been reduced to reanimated corpses that hunger for the living that is. Perhaps that is the saddest part of this world, that their bodies would never been laid to rest like they should be. Except I didn't feel sad when I watched them in the lake, I felt nothing. They had been dead too long to pity.

Further along there was a bench. The wooden structure had survived the battle with only a few stains of blood and dirt to show for it. It was a welcome sight to my tired feet that had seemingly carried me to the seat purposefully. The rifle came off my back, long since rendered useless by an absence of any ammunition I had once had. I lay it on the wooden bench. I pulled the knife from my belt loop; the one Daryl had given me as a replacement for my pocket knife which now sat dormant in my back pocket. The blade was several inches long and covered in thick, dark blood that had begun to dry. I lay that next to the rifle. Finally, I sat myself on the bench and breathed a sigh. I was tried, that much I was certain of, and hungry. The portions of food we had when I was with Dwight, Sherry and Tina were small, only being able to steal so much without being noticed by someone at Sanctuary, we had to ration what little food we did escape with, hold out until we came across somewhere to restock on supplies. But we hadn't gotten that far. In fact, we hadn't gotten very far at all.

I closed my eyes and lean back in my seat, the wooden beams digging in uncomfortably. I focused on listening to the soft breeze rustling the leaves of trees and creating small waves in the lake. With your eyes closed it was almost peaceful. You could forget that the world had ended. I didn't want to think of Dwight and Sherry... or Tina. They had gone back to the very place we all tried so hard to escape after her death. Back to _him._ Myself, I would rather die of starvation, or even a bite, than ever go back to that place. And I knew, when I had decided to leave, that those were all very real possibilities that could occur. God knows I had come close to before. The simple fact is, I'm not a really a survivor, or at least I wasn't until they had found me.

Nevertheless, I knew I'd be on my own once the others found their truck and brought me to that town. I was prepared for what had to happen next. But then everything had changed, and I felt like I had to stay alive just a little bit longer. Long enough to set some things right. I was still trying to do that, trying to be the good that Tina thought was still left in the world and somewhere in between, I had begun to think that maybe this place could be good for me. I knew how capable Daryl was, and then meeting Abraham and Sasha, too. The way they had dealt with the Saviors and how they had pulled through something that would have destroyed any other community. I had seen first-hand the strength of this group. It sparked something within me that I hadn't felt in a long time; hope. These people were strong. And it made me believe that they could do more

Like get rid of Negan and the Saviors.

Despite all of my wild hopes, I knew that it wouldn't be an easy task, and if they found out about everything too quickly it would scare them away from it. But at the same time, I didn't have a lot of time to ease them into the idea. As long as I was here, I was a sitting duck on display, not even trying to hide. And I knew all too well that people would be looking for me because there was no doubt in my mind that Dwight would use his knowledge of a new community to his advantage, so he could try and get on good terms with the big boss man again. Yeah, he would be looking... not only for me, but for this whole place.

The sound of feet on the grass made my eyes snap open and my hand instinctively grab the handle of Daryl's knife. I sprang to my feet, ready to drive the blade into the skull of some undead bastard. Except the source of the sound was very much living.  
The man raises his hands in a universal sign surrender, watching the blade closely as it stops inches from his temple, the sliver metal catching the light and shimmering like a precious jewel, not a weapon that could have ended his life. I lower it slowly and relax into a normal - perhaps slightly guarded - standing position. He lowers his hands and we stare at each other for a spilt second, within which I take in his appearance; he wore old blue jeans that have been faded by age and dirtied by the battle, along with a button up flannel shirt that hung loose on his thin frame.

He was bloodied and bruised, his hair a matted mess of brown locks, yet he didn't look threatening. He had a kind face, the type that people found comfort in because it was so friendly and unassuming. From the sharp jaw contrasted by thin lips and outlined by the beginning stubbles of a beard, to the thick eyebrows that framed bright blue eyes that reminded me of the sky during summer, when beaches were the only destination and laughter filled the air. But his eyes showed he had long since stopped laughing, the only emotion they held was an immense mental and physical tiredness that created bags under them.

"Sorry," I say quietly, shifting my feet, a little embarrassed. "I thought you were one of the dead" I admit.

"Not yet." He says in what I pursue to be his attempt at a joke, voice calm and steady as he watches me carefully. "You're Wendy, right?" He asks.

"I am."

"Daryl told us about you. About how you helped last night..." he began slowly, no doubt unsure of my character and how I would react. "You saved my life." He added almost too nonchalantly. My eyes snapped up to meet his and suddenly his figure looked familiar. He was the one I'd seen from the truck struggling with two roamers.

"I didn't." I say automatically, shifting my weight uncomfortably. "Don't say that."

A small smile graced his lips as if he'd been expecting my rather standoffish reply. "You did, and I'm thankful."

"I did what anyone else would have done." I snap back a little too quickly. "You could have handled it."

"I panicked," He admits, running a hand through his hair that gets caught in its tangles. "I didn't know what to do, but you did. Thank you." He smiles at me gently as I avoid eye contact with him. I mentally cringe at his gratitude, wondering just how thankful he would have been if he knew the whole story. "My names Aaron." He holds out a hand to me but I just stare at him, after a minute he pulls it back. "Rick would like to speak with you, if you're feeling up to it?"

Rick. I'd heard that name before. I'd presumed that he was in charge, and by the sounds of things I was right. "Your leader?" I questioned, slotting the knife back into my belt loop. Aaron's face displayed a hundred different emotions at once in that split second before it settled, his jaw slightly clenched.

"No." He said slowly, bright eyes wandering to the lake behind me in a daze. "We lost our leader, Deanna, last night." His voice sounded dejected and hollower than before and that guilt flooded my body again.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I say awkwardly. I'd never really been good at comforting anyone. Apart from my brother, I never really knew what to say, what I could say without coming across as intrusive.

His eyes flickered back to me as he forces a polite smile. "Rick and his group were working closely with her to help improve the security of this place..." he continued on and I thought how ironic that was considering the state of this community. "He's who everyone will undoubtedly look to now."

This piques my interest as it sounds as though 'Rick and his group' are fairly new to this place, so the fact that people are willing to put him in a position of leadership speaks volumes for his character before I'd even met him. I was curious as to what kind of person he was, though I would wager he was charismatic, endearing, though perhaps arrogant and highly opinionated. Being in a position of such undisputed authority for a long time can leave people to believe their word is gospel. After all, Aaron had called it Rick's group. It was his, and his alone.

"Well then, I'd best not keep him waiting if he wants to talk to me." I say finally, mustering some of that old confidence back up. I smile unassumingly, walking past him and back towards the infirmary.

I hear his footsteps behind me as he quickly swings around to keep up with my pace. "Right, yeah... this way." He says, eyeing me as we walk in unison across trampled grass and onto blood stained tarmac.

As we walked, I felt the questions forming on the tip of my tongue. I was willing to bet anything that Daryl was a part of Rick's group, not only for what I had heard, but from what I had observed about him. He clearly wasn't 'civilized' in the sense of having cushy walls to hide behind and a bed to sleep in every night. He was rugged and wild, but also cautious and remote. If that was anything to go by in regards to what Rick was like, this was going to be an interesting meeting. And the more I could figure out about him before our first interaction, the better.

"Aaron, you've been here since the beginning, right?" I ask after a minute of silence, no longer able to hold back the curiosity that plagued my mind. I suppose it didn't help that I was exhausted. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept, perhaps two days ago.

"Almost." He says after a moment's hesitation. "Me and my partner were in D.C. when the outbreak occurred. This place was one of the original safe zones and where we were evacuated to." He explains briefly.

"Huh," I laugh cynically. "Let me guess, the military ditched and left you all to fend for yourselves?" I ask with a raised eyebrow watching his facial expression which already gave me my answer. "Yeah, I was in a safe zone, too, at the beginning."

"Yeah..." he trails off dejectedly. "But we erected the walls soon after, formed a community. We've survived. Last night was the first time our walls have ever been majorly breached."

"And what about Rick and his group?" I ask, watching as the infirmary comes into view. "How long have they been here?"

"Maybe a month or two now." He answers thoughtfully. "I was the one who brought them here, we needed more people from the outside to teach us how to... well, fight. We had been surviving, but food was getting low and there was only a small group of us who would go outside the walls regularly." Aaron's voice gets quieter towards the end of his words.

I listened curiously, but only allowed myself to raise an eyebrow in response. I couldn't bring myself to feel any sort of sympathy for the people who had been behind walls this entire time. They had survived by putting up some metal sheets and rationing well, but at the cost of never having learnt how to fight, how to kill, how to desensitize themselves to all the horrid things this world made you do. And now they needed help because of it. I had to bite my tongue, so badly wanting to relay the harsh truth of the matter to him; if they didn't know how to survive at this point, they weren't going to make it. It was as simple as that.

"Why them?" I asked now as I begin to see people walking around, stood in groups, planning and coordinating how to clean up such a mess. He knew what I meant, of course he did, I'd even go as far as to say he was expecting me to ask.

"I watched them for a while. They had been on the road for a long time, travelling out in the open. They weren't just surviving, they were being smart, tactical. They knew their limits... and they never once turned on each other." He says honestly, smiling as if it warmed his heart to remember.

But I can imagine that such a close-knit group of people as the one Aaron described did not take kindly to a new face showing up out of the blue to declare he had been watching them and decided they must come with him to join his community. They would think it was a trick. They would be paranoid after having been out in the open for so long. They would have come across people who threatened them, stole from them, tried to kill them. No, I doubt they were at all thrilled by the prospect.

"Here," Aaron says now, as we approach a small group of people huddled together. "Rick!" He calls to get the leaders attention.

A tall man with a dirty button up shirt and bloodied trousers, secured with a holster that held an old gun in it, turns to face us as we approach. His face is shiny with sweat, dark hair damp and pushed back as though he'd ran his hand through it one too many times, and the dark stubble around his chin and jaw made him look far more untamed than most of the other residents I had come across. His eyes were squinted in the bright sun but the clear blue shimmered like crystals, piercing my skin as he watched me, studied my demeanor, trying to gauge what kind of person the apocalypse had turned me into. Thick eyebrows narrowed in a hard expression that was neither arrogant nor charismatic as I had guessed he would have been. Just guarded. Searching for something that would be considered a red flag, but I was on my best behavior.

"So, you're the one Daryl brought here," he speaks with a thick southern accent, his words steady, purposeful as he raises an eyebrow almost intrigued. "Wendy, right? I'm Rick Grimes. Welcome to Alexandria." He holds his hand out to me which I shake briefly. His was much larger than mine and I feared he'd crush my one good hand, but was surprised when he was not only gentle but slow, eyeing me as if I'd go for him at any second.

"Good to finally meet you, Rick." I say as I retract my hand from his grip.

Rick then turns to Aaron. "I'll take it from here, Aaron, thanks. Tobin's taking a group to start repairs on the wall, if you could supervise that for me that would be great." He says swiftly, jutting his head towards the breach.

"I'll leave you to it then." Aaron says with a knowing look. The two exchange a glance before he heads off towards the wall. Rick turns back to me.

"From what I've heard you ran into a bit of trouble out there." He says nodding towards my head. I self-consciously touch my forehead with my fingers, feeling dried blood on my temple.

"Yeah, but what's new?" I shrug, dropping my hand back to my side.

"Well, why don't we go somewhere a bit quieter and talk about it?" He suggests, shifting his stance. I hesitate for a moment, taking in his figure and trying to decide on what I made of him. There wasn't anything particularly frightening about him,though the prospect of being alone with him made me slightly nervous. I look him over once more before deciding to take the chance and agreeing to go with him, trusting that I was capable enough to defend myself if it came to it. 

❊

**EDITED ✓**


	10. NINE

The house was one of the few that had survived last night with little damage. The inside looked perfectly pleasant as if the family who lived there had only just left, nothing seemed out of place or at all like it belonged in a post-apocalyptic world. Knickknacks lined the wooden table in the hall way and the bookcase seemed as though it had been freshly dusted. Pristine, everything had a place. Maybe I was wrong about places like this and their immunity to tragedy. Rick lead me through to the living room.

"Would you like some water? You must be thirsty." He asks as I run my gaze over the comfy sofa and chairs, the long white curtains and the undisturbed rug. Even as he asks, I can feel my mouth, dry like an Arizona summer, my tongue like sandpaper as it ran along my teeth. Thirst had crept up on me, taking its time to emerge from the shadows, I hadn't realized just how dehydrated I had gotten.

"Yeah, thanks." I answer.

He left me in the room alone while he ventured into the kitchen and as I ran my fingers over the material of the chairs. I heard sounds of running water and licked my dry lips before continuing my assessment of the place. The windowsills were covered in a thin layer of dust, their curtains pulled aside to give way to the rays of sun that lit up the room. The glass was smeared with handprints and scratches were visible in certain lights, but the view of the street outside could still be made out. People were starting to move about again, some huddled in groups, moving the dead off of the streets, others clearing away the remains of the collapsed building, preparing to fix the wall. I let the curtains fall back into place and turn to see Rick enter the room again, holding a glass out to me.

"You have running water." I observe as I take the glass, not hesitating to bring it to my parched lips and gulp the liquid down.

"And electricity." He says, shifting his stance and placing his hands on his hips. I watch his distorted figure through the glass as I finished the water, feeling it cool and sooth my throat.

"The people who have been here since the beginning have been lucky." I comment, a slight bitterness to my tone as I place the now empty glass on a side table. Rick eyes me, clearly trying to decide how to deal with my offhand comment. Maybe I was being too judgmental, but it seemed incredibly unfair to me that most of us had to survive with nothing but a backpack and a knife while the only worries the people here had to endure was the occasional cold shower. I felt like Rick, too, had felt that same resentment at least once. Perhaps he still had those thoughts from time to time.

"I know what it's like out there." He says quietly. I wasn't sure if he said it to make me somehow feel better or to defend himself.

"I know. I saw you last night. You know how to fight, but some people here are clearly not very experienced with it." I shrug, taking a step closer to him, feeling the apprehension in the air around us. "That's why you're here, right? To teach people how to survive out there, in the real world? At least, that's what Aaron told me."

I can see that my questions rubbed him the wrong way, he clearly didn't like what I was suggesting, but Aaron had already told me enough to make my own assumptions. Maybe he thought I shouldn't have known any of this yet. He watched me intensely for a few seconds, like I was an unpredictable animal that could lunge for him at any moment. His eyes went down to my belt where Daryl's knife still hung, like an unspoken threat. I had honestly forgotten all about it.

"That's Daryl's." He says simply, nodding his head towards my hip. I nod.

"Haven't had a chance to give it back to him yet." I explain, taking it from my belt and holding it out to him, gripping the blade. He takes the handle slowly and places it down behind him. "Feel better now?" I ask despite my better judgement. It was a snappish remark that didn't really win me any points with the guy I should have probably been going out of my way to suck up to considering he would be deciding whether I should be allowed to stay here or be thrown out on my ass. But I hade given up trying to impress people a long time ago.

"I think it's my turn to ask questions." He replies with a fleeting, tight-lipped smile before turning around to pick something up. It was an old camcorder, complete with a flip-out screen and tripod. I furrow my eyebrows together as I watched Rick set it up.

"You're gonna record us talking?" I ask with raised eyebrows. "Seems slightly creepy."

"Everyone that's ever walked through that gate has their own recording." He cuts me off. "It's how Deanna... It's how we keep track of everybody." He trails off. I remember that Aaron had mentioned Deanna before. She had been the leader of this place, and she had died during the course of last night. Clearly Rick wanted to steer clear of that conversation. "Have a seat." He says turning round and motioning me to sit in the chair positioned across from the sofa. I took notice of the red light that flickered on the camcorder indicating it was indeed on.

Doing as he asked, I sit down and he promptly follows my lead, taking a seat on the sofa, completely out of view of the cameras field of vision. I suddenly remembered just how awful I must have looked, covered in blood and dirt, my clothes ripped to shreds as if I had been attacked by wolves. Well, it wasn't as if anyone would be watching the recording in a prestigious movie theatre any time soon but I was unusually conscious of being on camera.

"What do you want to know?" I sigh, settling back into the seat, though still not relaxed in the slightest.

"We'll start off with the basics, Wendy." He says clearly, using my name deliberately, most likely for the sake of the video. "Daryl told me about how he found you, said you were with some other people, that you all came from the same place – tell me about that." He starts, leaning back in his seat as he watches me. In all honesty, I didn't want to talk about Dwight and Sherry, let alone Tina, and I wasn't much fond of talking about Sanctuary either.

"There isn't much to tell." I say bluntly, picking the dirt out from under my nails. Rick cocks his head at me unconvinced.

"You were with others, right? You had to of left for a reason." He prompts, leaning forwards in his chair, I could feel his piercing eyes on me without even having to look up, but I did, and regretted it immediately as his stare was uncomfortable.

"Because that place is self-destructive." I snap, letting my emotions get the better of me. "The people there are selfish and cruel and I couldn't stand being there anymore."

"So, you and the others all left? How did you know each other?" He asks calmly in stark contrast to my outburst.

"We didn't, not really. I knew they wanted to leave just as much as I did so I suggested we all go together. Help each other out." I say, the annoyance evident on my face from remembering how stupid I was. "I'm sure Daryl told you how well that went, though. They gave in and went back; thought they didn't have any other options. It has nothing to do with me. I just wish I had gone on my own."

"Have you always travelled alone before this?" He asks now.

"What makes you think that?" I say with a fleeting smile, smoothing down the hair of my ponytail with my good hand.

"There was clearly nobody from the group you left that you were particularly close with." He shrugs, folding his hands in his lap. I give a half chuckle, tucking loose strands of copper colored hair behind my ears.

"You're right, there wasn't, but no. I haven't always been on my own." I say with a sigh, knowing that I wouldn't be able to avoid the topic forever. "When this all started, I was with my brother for a long time."

This seems to peak Rick's interest, but to his credit he doesn't ask the obvious question, instead opting for; "Where were you two at the beginning?"

"Ohio state." I answer shortly. "We'd lived there our entire lives. When the outbreak started getting out of hand me, my brother and his wife went to one of the 'Safe Zones' the military set up. As you're probably aware, they didn't exactly live up to their name." I say, unable to contain my sarcasm.

"What happened to the Safe Zone?" He asks softly, prompting me to continue.

"We waited around for a while after being all-cleared, not really sure what was going on or what was going to happen. No one could seem to give us a straight answer. Finally, they started loading people onto a helicopter. Children and women first." I hesitate. Having not told this story for a long time I was unsure of how much to say. "My brother's wife was pregnant so she was on the first helicopter to leave. My brother tried to get me to go on with her but I refused, I knew she was going to be safe wherever she was heading, but I couldn't guarantee the same for him, so I stayed. Not long after the second helicopter left the dead started to get too much for the soldiers to handle, the place got overrun and it was everyone for themselves." I pause to collect my thoughts after relaying what happened briefly.

"That must have been hard for you both." Rick says to fill the momentary silence. I hum in agreement, too busy studying the fabric of the chair to look up at him.

"He was never quite the same after that. Didn't sleep for days afterwards, hell-bent on spending every waking moment on trying to find any information that could lead us to Mekella..." I say quietly, reflecting on the memory. "Mekella was his wife's name." I add to clarify, looking up for the first time since mentioning my brother.

Rick had a strange look about him, a kind of recognition in his pale eyes. He looked sorrowful, but not in the way that suggested he pitied my brother, or me. In fact, his expression mirrored that of my brother's mourning dark eyes and down-turned lips. Somewhere behind that steely leader persona, I saw that there was a part of this man in front of me that could relate to what I had told him about my brother. It made me more curious than ever to find out just who Rick was, and what his own story was.

"Did you ever find her?" His voice brings me back to what we were talking about, his expression suddenly changed to one of neutrality.

"We thought we did. We thought we had an idea about where those helicopters were headed." I settle into my seat a bit more, my dark eyes narrowed critically. "See, like most other people we tried to stay on the outskirts of the city, thinking maybe someone would come back for us, but we were being pushed further and further out every day. So, one day we just drove off, and we kept driving until the gas ran out, then we walked.

"The first group of survivors we ran into, there was a guy called Matt. Said he was part of a special unit in the military a few years back, until he got discharged for disability -- a spinal injury, put him in a wheelchair -- anyway, he was gathering people up to help him get to the coast because, according to him, there were islands owned by the government that were prepped for this kind of situation. Food, water, electricity; everything you need to keep people alive. Matt told us that the chances were, that's where the helicopter had taken Mekella. My brother was adamant that we needed to go with Matt, understandably. He thought that this man could lead him to his wife. So, with no other leads and not a lot to lose, we decided to join their group."

Rick raised an eyebrow at me, seemingly unconvinced. "I'm guessing there's a reason why you're not on one of these islands now?"

"I was just getting to that bit." I say with a sarcastic smile. "As it turns out, Matt hadn't been entirely truthful with us. He _was_ apart of the military, but the injury to his spine hadn't just affected his ability to walk, it also affected his head. We found this out a couple of weeks later when his medication ran out and he became completely unhinged, rambling on about all these conspiracies. At that point we all knew that there were no islands." I sigh deeply, remembering how foolish we were to ever believe it would be that easy. "I don't think I've ever seen my brother as disappointed and just... empty as he was that day."

"You left after that?" Rick asks, his face contorted between emotions. There was the side of him that wanted to remain neutral as I told my story, but I could see that recognition behind his thin lips and dark eyelashes.

"Yes." I say bluntly. "Most of us up and left shortly after we realized Matt was full of shit." I fiddle with the torn fabric of my shirt absentmindedly as he listens to me, perhaps with a less vigilance now.

"You and your brother were close." It wasn't a question, more like a conclusion but I nodded anyway.

"Our parents weren't exactly there for us much, so we had to look out for each other." I say with a shrug. "After we left that group, we went back to walking without a destination again. There were other people, there always is, but none of them lasted long. Eventually, we figured that we were better off on our own and started actively avoiding other people..."

I pause for a moment, letting the silence between us grow. "Just ask the question Rick."

My sudden change of topic must have caught him off guard because he remained silent for a moment more, but I knew he understood where this was all going. I ran a hand over my hair and waited for the words to leave his lips. When they finally did, they came out soft and clear as if conscious that if he spoke the words too loudly, I would break, yet also all too aware that this was being recorded. Luckily for him this wasn't the first time I had told this story to someone like him.

"What happened to your brother?"

"The problem with it just being the two of us," I say almost immediately after he asks the question, letting my eyes meet his again. "was that we were always running out of things, and neither of us were very good fighters. We tried to avoid places that were overrun whenever we could rather than risk fighting the roamers, but sometimes we didn't have much of a choice."

"From what I've heard you're not a bad fighter." Rick interjects.

"Not now." I shrug, stressing the word. "It's just one of those things you have to learn now, otherwise you won't survive, but back then I wasn't so capable..." I trail off before continuing. "Anyway, we were getting desperately low on food and the closest place to us was small town that we had been trying to avoid because of the amount of dead that inhabited it. But, like I said, we didn't have much of a choice. It was either we go in and search the place or we starve. We didn't really have a system for this sort of thing but we always made sure to have a meet-up spot in case we got separated. This time it was a small clearing in the forest that surrounded the town, there was a big tree there, thick branches, easy to climb so we could get some height if we needed it..."

I ran my hands over the arms of the chair, watching the fabric beneath my finger while I talked. Truthfully, these details weren't really important but I didn't like talking about my brother anymore because I found it hard to. The problem with stalling like this, though, is that it made it even harder to continue. I was picturing it so clearly in my mind now; it was like I was there again. To his credit, Rick didn't try to interrupt or push me, he just sat across from me, listening with cautioned interest.

"There were way more roamers there than we first thought." I say with a deep sigh, knowing I can't avoid it for much longer. "They cornered us in one of the buildings so we had to use the fire escape to get out. We came out onto this tight alley way and just ran. But they were everywhere at that point. It's like they could smell us from a mile away. I had never seen so many in one place before then, definitely too many for the two of us to handle on our own. I knew we were in trouble... And then I tripped. Over my own fucking feet nonetheless." I could feel Rick's eyes on me but I wasn't looking at him, or anything really, just staring into space trying to concentrate on keeping my voice from breaking while I pushed each word from my lips forcefully.

"If it wasn't for my brother, I'd be dead now. He pulled me up and practically dragged me out of the way. I don't know what I did to my ankle but I could barely walk on it, let alone run... He knew this so he started trying to fight them all off with the one knife we had. Next thing I know, he's telling me to go to the meet up spot, said he'd find me there and that he was going to draw them all away. I have no idea how he thought he was going to do that but he didn't give me a chance to argue with him. That was the last time I saw my brother." I finish in a voice that barely sounds like my own anymore. I could feel all the emotions from that day coming back to me; most of all regret. Rick lent back, taking in everything I told him before speaking up once more.

"You don't know what happened to him..." As the words left his mouth, my self-loathing churned inside of me and transfigured into something else. Something equally as familiar. My emotions turned their attention to the man in front of me with icy blue eyes and down turned lips that looked far too much like my brother's as my teeth clenched together and my face hardened.

"No, I don't." I say bitterly, allowing my anger to seep through into my tone. "But if there is one thing in this world that I am certain of it is that my brother is dead. I waited in that goddamn tree for well over a day. I've walked through every fucking street in that town since then, looking for him. But I've never found anything. Not his remains, not even his reanimated corpse. There was no sign of him ever having been there. But I know he's dead, and do you wanna know how?" I continue, each of my words coming out more spiteful than the last, my eyes locked onto Rick like if I looked away, he would disappear. And this was something I needed to make painfully clear to him.

"Wendy..." Rick says my name, reaching to comfort me with one hand which I push away from me forcefully.

"Because I practically raised him. I know him better than anyone else, and I know that he would have come back to me, even if he had to drag himself through hell to get there..." My voice rises quickly before growing quieter as it begins to break, tears threatening to fall from my eyes. "I never wanted to give up looking, but I had no choice."

In my long silence the tears do fall, hot and quick down my cheeks as I hold back a sob. The memory of it all was too much for me to ignore any longer. I could see it all so clearly. Images I thought I had buried deep beneath a protective layer of indifference and apathy, suddenly flooding my mind. I wasn't sure if it was my growing fatigue, the insistent urge to defend my actions, or maybe it was just the build up from a long time of not showing too much emotion in fear of being taken advantage of. Hastily, I wipe the tears from my puffed-up eyes and red blotted skin. But Rick had already seen me break down. I couldn't remember the last time I had cried like this in front of somebody. I felt weak, and every bit as pathetic as I really was. I had protected him his entire life, but in the end, none of it had mattered because he had died because of me.

I felt a hand in move in front of me and briefly looked up to see Rick holding out a small square of fabric; a handkerchief. He was looking at me with the same expression that had been on his face since the topic of my brother came up, a strange mix of understanding and benevolence. I carefully took the small cloth from him and wiped what remained of the tears from my face, sniffing as I composed myself once more.

"When this all began," Rick spoke softly, fixing me with his bright eyes and pretending that I wasn't having a hard time keeping the tears back still. "I was in a coma. When I woke up, everything I ever knew was gone, including my family. My wife and son. There were times I thought I would never see them again, but I was lucky and I found them. Later, my wife died giving birth to our daughter. Even though I still had so much left to fight for, I felt like I had lost everything all over again. I wasn't around when she needed me, and afterwards I shut myself off from everyone. I forgot that other people still depended on me. For that I will never forgive myself." His words hung in the air for a moment as I watch him closely, processing what he had just told me and trying to figure out why.

"You still have your kids." I say in a monotonous voice, barely even aware I was peaking as I refolded the square of cloth in my lap.

"And I'm scared I'll lose them too, every single day. I came close to losing one of them last night." Rick says steadily despite the subject matter, his eyes fixed on me with a pleading stare. He wanted me to trust him.

"How?" I ask, knowing I was pushing my luck by prying.

"He was shot." Rick answers, his face suddenly falling. "He lost an eye, but he'll be okay."

"You must have a good doctor." I say before sighing heavily, scolding myself internally for having no tact. "What I meant was, your wife gets to live on through your kids. The only thing I have left of my brother is this-" I pull the pocket knife out from my jeans and hold it out for him to see, opening the blades in one swift motion. Rick's eyes flit from the blade in my open palm to me, and back again. Clearly not happy that I had a weapon other than Daryl's knife on me the entire time. I scoff upon seeing his reaction. "It's blunt. It's hard enough to drive it into rotting flesh, probably wouldn't even make a scratch on something that's still breathing." I flick the blades back into their wooden slots and hold it out to him. "If you really want it, take it."

Rick slowly leans forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. "I want to trust you Wendy."

"But you can't." I finish for him, raising my eyebrows as if questioning whether I was right. He didn't need to answer me, I knew I was. He sighs quietly and runs a hand over his face.

"Why did you leave?" He asks finally. I just stare at him for a moment, collecting my thoughts and wondering why exactly he was bringing it up.

"After my brother," I began shakily, not able to look Rick in the eyes. "I just gave up. There wasn't a single reason for me to try and carry on anymore. Then _they_ found me, just when I thought it was all over. They gave me a new purpose; a reason to go on without my brother. I felt like I owed them my life." I pause, looking up at Rick's now narrowed blue eyes. "But if there's one thing I've learnt, it's that you don't owe anybody anything, 'cause they sure as hell won't ever think they owe you shit."

"What'd they do to you?" His voice was low when he talked now, quiet as if he didn't want to interrupt me but couldn't keep himself from asking. I repress a shudder and just shrug.

"They used me. And maybe that's my fault for not realizing that I didn't have to let others dictate my life... I'm not proud of what I have and haven't done, but I did it all to survive. You have to understand that." Our eyes locked for an intense moment. Unspoken words flew between us as he silently urged me to explain what I meant. But I didn't utter another word.

"I think we can all understand that." He says carefully, his stare intense, not leaving mine for a moment. "We've all done things we regret."

"Then you understand that I'd rather not talk about it." I say with a shrug as if dismissing the conversation entirely.

But I could still feel the memories bubbling to the surface of my mind, feel that cold, damp room I had become so acquainted with after I had refused to take any more of their bullshit any longer. The crumbling concrete against my bare skin, the faint glow of light from under the doorway -- the _only_ source of light -- and the freezing cold air which made breathing excruciatingly painful, like icicles had formed in my lungs. The memory was enough to make my skin flare up in goose bumps. Still, I had to remind myself that I had it easier than some. I'd seen people be branded with hot irons, heard the muffled screams as teeth were pulled and finger and toes were chopped off as a 'warning' to everyone that may have wandering loyalties. None of this I told Rick. I didn't want any of them to know yet.

"I understand." He says after a silence that was far too long. I let out a shallow breath and nodded thankfully, knowing that he still had questions that were on the tip of his tongue despite his stoic expression.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	11. TEN

Rick quickly ended our little session by standing from his seat across from me and turning off the camera which I had entirely forgotten about. I watched as it's little red blinking light disappeared and he took it off the tripod before turning back to me.

"I think that will do for now." He said, his lips curving slightly at the corners with a faint smile.

I didn't know how long we had been talking for but it was long enough that my throat had started to go dry again, I guess I just wasn't used to this much talking. Or I was still severely dehydrated. I was willing to bet more so on the latter. I followed his lead and got up from my seat, trailing him as we moved back towards the entrance of the house. But there was something on my mind and I cleared my throat apprehensively as we approached the front door. Rick turned to me expectantly.

"Just... out of curiosity, are you going to be showing that recording to anyone else?" I asked, a little unnerved at the prospect of other people seeing that footage.

To my surprise, he smiled softly with a sincere and understanding look in his eyes before saying, "Yes, but only a few people, and not all of it." I nodded, content with that answer for now but still not entirely comfortable with it. I decided it wasn't worth pursing it any further if I wanted to stay on his good side. "By the way," Rick spoke up once more, bringing the knife Daryl had given me from his sheath and holding it out to me. "I think you should return this to him yourself." He said, nodding towards it.

I blinked for a second, not having expected that he would give it back to me, but I took it gratefully and smiled widely to show my gratitude. "Thank you, I'll make sure it gets back to him..." I promise but trail off, realizing something. "Actually, where did Daryl go?" I ask, having no idea of where to find him to return him his weapon.

Rick looks thoughtfully for a second, "He was in the infirmary last I saw, getting stitches in that knife wound of his."

My mind wandered back suddenly to the trouble we had had yesterday while driving back here, having met those Saviors on the road and remembered the way Daryl had dealt with them, coming out of it with nothing but a knife stabbed in his shoulder. I had completely forgotten about the wound he suffered, what with the way he shrugged it off, not having even mentioned the pain, though it must have been bad since it had needed stitches. I suddenly felt guilty once again. A feeling I was getting far too acquainted with.

"He'll be fine," He continues when I don't answer, probably mistaking my scrunched-up face for an expression of concern and not overwhelming culpability. I had no doubts that he would be fine, it was clear even when I had first laid eyes on him that he was nothing short of a survivor, a single stab wound would not incapacitate him. "but speaking of the infirmary, you should get yourself checked over." He adds, nodding down at my left hand with the makeshift bandage.

I instinctively shift it from view. "It's nothing major, I'm sure they have more serious things to worry about." I shrug, placing the knife back into my belt loop, avoiding eye contact.

"I'm sure Denise can find a few minutes to look you over." He insists, opening the front door. "I was heading that way anyway, I'll walk you."

Without another word he steps out into the fading rays of sunlight, no longer high in the sky, the sun was slowly beginning to make its descent, casting long and blindingly bright beams through the trees and onto the streets of the community which were now starting to look more like streets and less like a mass grave. This only confirmed my suspicion that me and Rick had spent at least a few hours inside that house. He didn't give me a chance to argue back, instead taking purposeful strides out into the open street where people passed him by and a lone truck slowly made its way up the road ahead of us, presumably to help with the clean-up. I had a feeling there was not much point in arguing with Rick anyhow, so I just sighed and walked quicker to catch up with him.

We passed people who all seemed to wave to Rick without giving myself much of a second glance, though I knew they would not have overlooked me so happily if I was not with him. It was incredible how people would just trust the man in charge with no questions asked, but people would always look for someone to make the decisions for them. That's just how things were. We closed in on the small building I had seen earlier that day, its white, wooden panel porch seating a few people still, though not nearly as many as it had that morning. One thing that stuck out to me, though, was a woman that was sat outside on the ground, a small infant with blonde hair sat in her lap and playing with the fabric of the woman's shirt. It was an odd sight to see a child so young these days and for some reason it made my heart beat a little faster in my chest.

If this place hadn't survived the attack last night...

I was watching them as me and Rick drew closer to the infirmary, when suddenly the woman looked up. I was worried that she'd think me weird for staring but she wasn't looking at me, instead she smiled and waved at Rick as he hastened his pace over to the two. I followed slowly.

"Rick!" The woman greeted enthusiastically, not at all the tone you would expect from someone who had experienced the horrors of last night. "I was just about to take Judith inside." She smiled, standing up from her position and carrying the child on her hip. Rick smiled back.

"Thanks for looking after her, Olivia, I can take it from here." He says passively as the woman, Olivia, handed her over. She was a big-ish woman, long dark hair pulled back into a simple ponytail and black oval framed glasses, dressed in a simple button up plaid shirt and dark leggings.

"If you're sure," She smiled while Rick settled the child into his arms. "don't hesitate to ask if you need an extra pair of hands." And with that she was gone, down the wooden steps and off towards a large group of people that had accumulated at the breach in the wall. I watched Rick for a moment before deciding to speak up.

"She's your daughter?" I ask, though it wasn't really much of a question. He nods, an affectionate smile spreading across his face.

I felt a pang of something akin to pity in my heart, remembering what Rick had told me about his kids, about his wife having died delivering their second child. The tiny little blonde thing that he was holding in his arms now, watching her with so much love and promise. It struck me, then, the reason why he was going to the infirmary. He had mentioned to me his son, how he had lost an eye last night. That's why he was here, to check on him. I bite back my questions, not wanting to pry too much and simply followed him into the infirmary.

It wasn't overly large inside; in fact, it was rather small. It wasn't really anything special, just a house that had been converted into something resembling a clinic. As I walked in the door, I noticed that the kitchen was still there, even the island and its chars remained, but on the other side of the room large amounts of makeshift hospital beds were scattered about the place, made out of just about anything that they could fine. Some were simply mattresses; others had the luxury of a pillow and many were nothing but a blanket. Almost all were stained red with blood. There were also few dividers in place to give some type of privacy but it wasn't much. There were other things too, that were reminiscent of the old floor plan and told me this used to be a living room. The fireplace and mantelpiece that now held bottles of pills and discarded cans of pop was one of them.

Rick wandered off behind a divider while I stayed rooted to the spot, unable to decide where to place my gaze. Most people in the room were asleep, or maybe just trying to seem it, but some watched me, unyielding, unashamed. They had seen me walk in with Rick, but they didn't know me, and it scared them.

I hear footsteps walking back towards me, two sets this time, and Rick emerges with a woman. She's blonde with wavy, straw-like hair that's pulled into a ponytail loosely, some strands falling in her face. She wears thin-rimmed glasses with a light blue shirt and cut-off jeans, but most notably, she looks exhausted and splatters of blood stained the fabric of her clothes. She didn't walk with any resemblance of confidence, in fact her hands seemed shaky and her overall demeanor inexplicably hesitant. She pointed Rick in the direction of a doorway that presumably lead to other rooms and he headed that way with Judith. The woman turns my way now, and offers me a small smile.

"You must be Wendy, Rick's told me about..." She starts, but trails off, seemingly not knowing what was off limits to bring up. My lips twitch at the corners. "Anyway, I'm-"

"Denise." I finish for her, keeping my eyes firmly on hers.

"Yeah..." She nods, breaking my gaze. "Well, let's get up cleaned up a bit first."

"Do I look that bad?"

"What? I-... No, of course not, just-" She stumbles at my question. This time I can't contain my smile.

"I'm joking." I inject her rambling, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oh," she says quietly before returning my smile. "I'll get some water." With this she turns and heads towards a sink in the corner of the room, grabbing a small plastic bowl and filling it.

When she returns, she sets it down on the table besides me and gestures for me to take a seat. I pull myself up onto the counter and lean back on my hands while she dips a cloth in the bowl and starts to dab at the gashes on my forehead. The water was cold, yet refreshing in the heat and I once again felt myself grow thirsty at the thought of it.

"So, you're the doctor here?" I question, not liking the silence that fell between us or the isolated coughing that would fill it from time to time; it reminded me all too much of the other people in the room, specifically the ones who watched me so closely when I walked in. I was also curious about her. She seemed uncertain of me, but also herself and it made me wonder...

"Yes, well, I guess so- I mean, it just kinda... happened." She stammers again, dropping her hand to her side as I watched her, missing the cool liquid on my skin. She quickly dunked the cloth again and started over. "I _did_ train to be a surgeon, before that is, but it wasn't for me... I ended up changing course and studying psychiatry instead, less of a hands-on subject, you know." As she talked, I watched her from that strange angle, feeling the cloth gently on my skin and listening intently. "But they needed a doctor here," she went on. "And well, I do have some of the training... that looks better. The cuts aren't deep so they won't need stitches but I'll put some steri-strips over them, encourage it to heal faster." She explains almost absentmindedly as she pops the cloth back into the bowl.

I nod to show I was listening but follow up with a question. "You been here long?" She's quiet for a second before nodding slightly herself.

"A while." She fiddles with the waterlogged cloth for another moment before seemingly deciding to continue. "The people here... they're good- good people." Denise goes quiet once more and looks down at her damp hands, then she stills, catching a glimpse of my left hand, still bandaged haphazardly and looking as if blood had seeped through again as new spots of bright red had begun to crop up next to the darker, dried brown ones. "May I?" She asks to which I nod and watch as she takes my hand and begins to unwrap the fabric slowly.

I wince slightly as a sudden shock of pain shoots up into my arm before stopping myself and gritting my teeth as she continues. It looks as bad as it had felt. A large gash ran across my palm, stretching almost the entire width, with blood still dripping down onto my fingers and to the floor. Suddenly having air hit the open wound again made it feel as though I had stuck my hand into a flame, the heat flared up and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from yelping at the pain. Denise stared at me.

"When did this happen?" She asked, the look on her face horrified and not at all comforting.

"Last night. I was moving a few things so that we could get the truck in front of the breach in the wall." I say, watching her expression become more alarmed.

"Do you know what you cut it on?"

"I couldn't really see that well, could have been a shard of metal, or brick, might have been wood... Can't really say for certain." I shake my head, speaking slowly as she breathed a little shakily.

"We'll clean it first and go from there, but I think it'll need stitches." She admits, looking at me wearily. I just nod.

"Great." I mutter as she takes the bowl over to the sink to refill it.

As she does, I take another moment to look around the room, distracting myself from the mild throbbing in my palm now and the heat I could feel emitting from it. On the desk next to the one I was sitting on was a pile of heavy looking text books, curious I lean over to look at it.

_Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science_

I move it over and see another book of the same author. All the books on the pile seemed to be medical, which is understandable. I hazarded a guess that this is how Denise was teaching herself to be a doctor, not just a psychiatrist with some basic knowledge of a surgery. But at the very bottom of the pile, there was something else which caught my eye; _War and Peace._

Denise places the bowl of water down on the table again and watches me as slowly bring myself up to look at her again, this time she's smiling more genuinely.

"Have you read it?" She asks as she takes the cloth from the new bowl of water and rings it out.

"Which one?" I raise an eyebrow at her and she stifles a small laugh.

"Well, any of them I guess..." She trails off. " _War and Peace,_ I mean." As she talks, she takes my hand and starts to clean the wound in my palm carefully, barely touching the skin and yet I could still feel every slight touch of fabric and every drop of cold water that landed on it. I wince again but shake my head at her question.

"I think," I begin, ignoring the sudden throbbing that came with the contact. "that I was supposed to have read it in high school, but I couldn't tell you what it was about." I shrug as she drips the cloth back into the water.

"That's fair, I don't think many people could. It's long, but I have a lot of time on my hands these days-... well, at least I used to." She corrects herself towards the end of her sentence and I suddenly felt bad for her. She was by herself here, the only thing that even slightly resembled a doctor. She didn't ask for this, but she feels like she has to do it because without her here, there would be no one. She clearly isn't confident in herself and she's worried about messing up.

"Suppose this whole doctor gig will keep you busy at the moment." I say quietly, looking past her to all the people behind those dividers. All of them relying on her. It must have been an extreme amount of pressure to hold by yourself.

"Yeah... sure will." She sighs. Then, without warning, she drops the cloth in the bowl and looks at me straight on. "This cut definitely needs stitches, but I don't have anesthetic to spare at the moment..." She trails off lamely but I knew what she was saying.

"I've been through worse" I shrug, trying to give off an air of nonchalance. "Just do it, I'll be fine."

She watches me for a second before turning to a cabinet and returning with a needle and thread. I take a moment to breath a deep breath, steadying myself, still able to feel my quickening pulse in my palm. She pauses. Then, seemingly deciding that postponing it would only make it worse, Denise steadies my hand before bringing the needle to the edge of the cut and pushing it through. I felt the sharp pinching as it found its way into my skin and pulled tighter, flinching slightly and averting my eyes. It was a weird feeling to have your skin physically pulled together by a thread, and I could feel every tug, every time the needle pocked through my skin, every time a new stitch was started.

"You can borrow it if you want." Denise piped up suddenly. I was taken off guard by her remark.

"What?"

"The book, I mean," She elaborates, not looking up at me as she works. I watch her pull the thread tighter and wince a little once more. "You were right, I'm not going to have much time to read for a while, and this hand is going to need to rest for a few days." I appreciated that she continued to talk, knowing that she was probably only trying to distract me from the stitches and picking the first topic of conversation that came into mind.

"Thanks, but I've never been much of a reader... And I don't think it would be wise to start with something like _War and Peace..._ " I trail off with a small, airy laugh that I forced through teeth that were gritted with pain.

"Well, if you ever decide you've changed your mind, all you have to do is ask." She replies, looking up at me now and smiling genuinely. My mouth instinctively moves to smile back at her. "Or I have some others if you want something a little less taxing, you can take your pick."

"What, like one of your many medical books?" I say only half joking. I hear her breathe a little laugh before bringing her head up once more and letting her shoulders drop, becoming more relaxed in her stature.

"All done. How's it feel?" She asks now.

I look down at my hand, still red and irritated but the wound was closed together now. Not neat by any means, but it was better than bleeding out. Slowly, I curl my fingers into a fist, feeling the slight tug of my skin. I nod reassuringly.

"Feels good to me." I answer, uncurling my fist and stretching out my fingers.

"Good, I'll just wrap you up and then you're good to go... oh, but you need to be careful with that hand; because of the placement of the stitches they're more prone to coming undone. If that happens, you'll know, and you'll need to come sees me straight away, or if it bleeds through the bandage." She warns me, suddenly becoming more serious and more confident than I'd seen her until that point. I stare at her for a second before nodding.

"I got it." I answer.

Seemingly happy with my response she gathers the bandages and starts to wrap my hand slowly, turning my arm and going around my fingers and thumb before taking it way further down my wrist than I expected and doubling it up. She secures it in place and has me make sure its tight enough.

"Thanks, Denise." I say with a small smile as I jump off of the counter top. She looks surprised at my appreciation but returns my smile.

"No worries, it should heal fairly quickly now but you'll probably be left with a scar." She acknowledges with an apologetic look as if it was somehow her fault.

"Before I go," I start, suddenly remembering what Rick had told me. "You don't happen to know where Daryl is, do you?" I ask. She looks caught off guard by the question but quickly recovers and looks thoughtful for a moment.

"I'm not sure... he's probably helping clean up the, ya know, bodies... moving them out of the walls." She answers, her voice getting slightly quieter, as if conscious of someone listening to us, which she probably was, most likely she didn't want her other patients to hear. I nod.

"Thanks again," I repeat myself, heading towards the open door.

"Oh, and don't worry about fitting in here," Denise calls out just as I reach the doorway, I stop and look at her. "You'll be just fine." She finishes, nodding as if to reassure me.

I give one more, brief smile before leaving the infirmary. I wasn't entirely sure where her last comment had come from; maybe she thought I was nervous about being here or maybe she was just being nice for the sake of it. Either way, I had to admit, I liked Denise but it was painfully obvious to me that she wasn't exactly confident in herself despite how important her role here was. But I knew she didn't choose to have that role. She was just trying her best with what she had been given. Not unlike myself, I guess.

❊

**EDITED ✓**


	12. ELEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine has kinda kicked my ass when it comes to writing.  
> I want to just let you guys know that I've uploaded this story onto two platforms now, Wattpad and AO3. But when I was uploading the chapters to AO3 I noticed a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes which I want to go back and fix, so I will, but also I'm gonna edit and change some of the first chapters 'cause I'm not really happy with them and my writing style has changed a lot since I first started writing this, as you may or may not have noticed. So, updates will be postponed for a while, but yeah when the next chapter goes up all the edits will be done. I highly suggest you go back and read everything again, if only to refresh your memory.
> 
> I am leaving you with a good chapter though, imo ;)

I walked round the community, following the roads that were now becoming almost walk-able again. The people here had worked hard throughout the day to clear this many this quickly but there again, this place shouldn't have even survived last night. It made sense though. People want to get back to normal life again. Whatever normal life means these days. Just as I turned the corner onto a new road, I spot a pickup truck parked near the bank of the lake and a figure nearby, dragging a body and loading it onto the back. The light of the day was beginning to fade rapidly now but in the rays of golden sun that still found their way into the community's wall I could make out the darkened figure's outline.

I knew it was him by the way his hair fell into his face as he dragged the body and how he didn't even attempt to move it from his eyes. He didn't care enough to. I picked up my pace unconsciously, stepping over the few roamers that remained in the road, and as I drew nearer, I noticed that his arms were still bare and slick with sweat that caught the sun. Under the cut off sleeves of his shirt I could see the corner of white bandage sticking out.

"You'll rip your stitches if you're not careful." I call out once I get within a few meters of him, my lips twitching into a smile. Daryl turns at the sound of my voice, watching me with that same expression he had when Dwight and Sherry had left and I insisted that he bring me here. I could never quite tell what he was thinking.

"Where ya been?" He asks in a harsh tone, eyeing me with something like suspicion, but more like curiosity.

"Oh, you know, about." I say airily, smirking as I wave my hand in the general direction behind me. He narrows his eyes at me.

"You spoke to Rick?" He asks more bluntly now, standing up a little straighter as if silently telling me to stop teasing him. Teasing probably wasn't the right word. Messing with people, making audacious remarks, is just something I can't help most of the time, and it's so easy when it's someone like Daryl. I can tell he gets wound up easily. I guess it's just my way of dealing with things.

"Mmh," I hum in response. "That's kinda what I meant by 'about'."

"So, you staying?" He looks me up and down, his eyes faltering on my hand, the bright white bandage against dirt, blood covered, tanned skin. It was quite the contrast.

"I guess that's up to him," I pause my eyes landing on his again. "And, maybe you." He watches me for a second, his eyes searching for any semblance of insincerity or mocking. But there wasn't any.

"Nah," He says finally, turning back to the body he was moving. "I just brought ya 'ere."

"Yeah, which reminds me," I nod, unsheathing the blade tucked away in my waistband. "this belongs to you." I hold out Daryl's knife to him as he turns back to me, looking from me to the knife and back.

"Keep it." He says almost without hesitation. "You might need it." I stare at him blankly for a second before retracting my arm slowly. I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that.

"Why?" I ask hesitantly.

He simply jerks his head towards the corpse on the ground at his feet and says, "Give me a hand."

I sigh and walk over, grabbing the feet while Daryl had the arms. Together we carried it over to the truck. He climbed up into the truck bed and dumped it on top of the ones that were already there. It wasn't more than a dozen, maybe two, but it was enough to fill it so that there wasn't much room for anymore.

"What are you doing with them all?" I ask as he jumps down and pulls the back up.

"Takin' 'em a few miles out, burning 'em." He answers passively, his voice suddenly taking on a stronger tone.

"All of them?" I raise my eyebrows at him, fully aware that they lost a lot of people last night. He pauses, watches me from the corner of his eye, then shakes his head.

"No, we bury our own." I nod, wondering just how many graves would have to be dug... how many were already there... "You comin'?" Daryl grunts, snapping me out of my thoughts. I look up and see him next to the open driver's side door.

"Yeah," I say slowly. "not like I have anything else to do."

He scoffs before climbing into the truck and shutting the door. I follow suit as he starts up the truck and pulls out onto the road. It was still bumpy as we moved at a slow crawl through the community, but nowhere near as bad as it had been last night. We close in on the gate and Daryl unwinds his window and pulls to a stop. A man with dark hair styled into a mullet sidles up to us, his demeanor odd and awkward. I watch curiously as Daryl begins to speak with him.

"This is the last one for today, don't want people in 'n' out of the walls after dark." He says lowly, leaning his arm out the window as he talks. "I'll let 'em know if we come across the others on the road, just make sure Rick knows where we are."

"I will, indeed, inform him of your departure, however I must confess that I do not think it in anyone's best interest for you to be taking her outside of the walls right now." The man speaks in a monotonous way, eyeing me from his position next to the truck. I raise my eyebrows at him, taken aback by his directness and eccentric manner.

"I'm sitting right here, douchebag." I scoff, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Yes, and I apologize for any offence, but I implore you to understand that we do not know you, and thus I do not trust you as of yet." He nods stiffly, shifting his weight yet keeping a steady gaze fixed on me uncomfortably.

"What do you think I'm gonna do, lure him into the woods and shoot him? I don't even have a gun and he could easily overpower me in a physical fight." I retort snappishly, weirded out by his staring and odd phrasing. "Besides, Daryl's a big boy, he can handle himself." I pout sarcastically, patting his arm in a condescending manner. Daryl eyes me with a warning look.

The man pauses, his eyes darting between me and Daryl as if trying to assess something. His gaze ultimately ends up on Daryl.

"I will let Rick know where you are." He repeats himself, giving one last nod before heading to the gate and pulling back the mesh and opening it up.

I shake my head as my eyes follow him, clenching my jaw in agitation. We drive out of the community and are soon picking up speed. I watch the place disappear behind us through the wing mirror.

"What an asshole." I mutter to myself before fixing my eyes back on the road ahead of us.

Daryl remains quiet, although I know he heard me. We stay in silence for a while, just as we had before when we were alone in a vehicle together. It was nice to just listen to the whirring of the engine and tires on the tarmac. People these days don't like silence. It makes them uneasy. So, they try and fill it with questions about where you're from and how you got here, what you were before and what you wish you still were. It always comes back to before. But it doesn't matter now, because we are so far removed from 'before' that it just feels like a distant dream now, something you have a fuzzy memory of but can't actually prove ever existed or happened. Silence is better than dwelling on the past. That's why I liked Daryl, had a certain respect for him. Because he never tried to fill the silence with meaningless words and pleasantries. He never felt like he had to explain.

Like when Dwight mistook him for a Savior. He had never tried to correct him, never tried to defend himself. He just waited until we figured it out, probably knowing that, even if he did try to set him straight, Dwight would have never believed him. None of us would have. You can't just take people for their word anymore. And Daryl knows that.

"I want to thank you," I begin after clearing my throat. "you know, for bringing me here and giving me a chance, even after everything." I say quietly, watching the trees pass by from my door's window. He doesn't say anything, but I can feel his eyes on me for a moment before he reverts them back to the road. "Can I ask you a question?" I ask, turning to look at him now.

"Ya just did." He says bluntly, his voice gruff and low. I breathe a faint laugh but go silent again, not sure how to phrase what I wanted to say. After a minute, I sigh and continue.

"Why?" I say simply. "I mean, what was it that convinced you to trust me?" I ask, never having been one for words of gratitude or expressing my thoughts in a way that wasn't synclinal.

"What? Did ya want me to just leave ya there?" He asks, eyebrows raise, though he was still looking at the road, not me.

"No... I- I don't know..." I admit, bringing my hand up to my face and biting my nails in thought.

The thing was, I had hoped he wouldn't but now I was questioning why he didn't. Hope is a funny thing like that. Once you lose it, you never think you can get it back, and you give up trying to find it, but one way or another, it always finds a way back into your chest; filling you with the sense that everything will be okay if you just let it lead you down its path. That's where you have to be careful, careful not to let hope turn into blind faith. Not to let life trick you into a false sense of security and whisper words of encouragement into your ear as it pushes you off a cliff into a sea of bad decisions. Not to let it get it's strangle-hold on you and change the person you thought you were. Not again. I was scared of this hope that I felt in the pit of my stomach, because I didn't want it to trick me again. But the longer I was with Daryl, with his friends and family, the more I felt it grow.

"When we were in that forest, when you followed me, I didn't know you were there." Daryl speaks up, bringing my full attention back to him.

"Yeah, that was kinda the point." I say deadpan to which he only scoffs.

"You could have shot me, ended it right then, but you chose not to. All that crap about waiting for the right moment... that was bullshit and you know it." He says coolly, his tone still harsh and rough but his words oddly kind, sympathetic.

"You don't think I would have done it?" I ask with a slight challenge in my tone. He watches me from the corner of his eye.

"You didn't do it." He says bluntly.

I lean back in my seat, running and hand through my hair. "Maybe I just didn't wanna kill a person."

"Right..." He says after a minute, his voice barely above a whisper.

I let the silence take over again as our words fizzled out, swallowed up by the constant sound of the truck running. The daylight was fading fast now, creating an eerie darkness that encircled us as we drove. Daryl flicked the headlights on to light up the road ahead of us, but they were old and only allowed us to see what was about a meter in front of us. In the distance, I could make out the faint glow of orange illuminating the night sky, smoke wafting upwards to meet with the stars. A fire.

As we got closer, Daryl pulled off onto a dirt road that opened up into a large field. The fire was crackling and spitting out embers in the middle of it, creating a dazzling light show as the flames reached up higher and higher. In the gloom, I could make out another truck and two people dumping corpses into the flames. Daryl stopped the truck and turned off the engine before jumping out and approaching the two men. I do the same, curious as to what was going to be said.

"...circle back, we'll pick it back up again in the day light." I hear the end of his sentence as I follow after him. The two give him a nod before their eyes scan over to me, coming to a halt at Daryl's side.

"You sure you don't want us to stay?" One of them says as he looks me up and down. I raise my eyebrows at him, returning his gaze, taking in the disheveled appearance and tattered clothing.

"I got it." Daryl replies smoothly.

Silence rings out, with only the crackling of the burning bodies to fill it as the man who had been talking to Daryl lets his eyes linger on me with distrust before eventually nodding. They head off to their truck without another word, starting it up and pulling off onto the dirt track. Daryl doesn't stop to watch them leave like I do, instead opting to unhinge the back of the truck and start unloading all the corpses while I keep my eyes firmly latched onto their vehicle until I can't see them anymore. I didn't like the assumption and unspoken skepticism that surrounded these people. The way they looked me up and down. I grind my teeth tightly and turn back to help.

"Do they all already know about me?" I ask stiffly as I watch him pull a dead roamer out by its ankles.

"Probably," He grunts as the body drops to the floor. I begin to pull out another. "word travels quick."

"Clearly." I mumble as he drags it off towards the fire.

It didn't take long to dump them all into the flames and watch them all burn away into ashes, with the two of us working quickly in the ever-darkening night it was easy work. At some point I felt my hand begin to burn up, but it didn't stop me for long, I knew it was just the stitches settling in and the blood pumping through my veins at all the physical work.

After we had emptied the truck bed, we both leaned up against the bumper and just watched it all burn for a while, smoke curling up into the sky, blocking out the stars from view and filling our lungs. Still, that didn't seem to be enough for Daryl as he pulled out a cigarette and lighter before offering me one. I hesitate, but ultimately take one and light it just as he did, taking a deep breath and letting the nicotine fill my system. It had been a long day, an even longer week for me and I couldn't remember the last time I had had a proper night's rest.

I pull the cigarette from my mouth and let my hand hang down by my side, the other wrapped around my own waist. Then, I close my eyes for a second and just listen. I heard the fire, it's flames slowly starting to die down now as it ran out of fuel, I heard the soft breeze and the trees it passed, I even heard a bird cawing faintly in the distance. But mostly, it was just the fire, its heat hitting my face and its smell, the smell of burning flesh, climbing up into my nose. I took another drag of the cigarette, hoping to rid my senses of it.

"Before," I hear Daryl speak up from next to me and slowly begin to open my eyes again. "ya said you didn't know what you wanted. What 'bout now?" He asks his steely eyes already on me as I turn to him. I mulled over the question for a moment, turning the cigarette between my fingers and watching it slowly burn away.

"Well, I want people like that asshole at the gate to stop looking at me as if I'm seconds away from pointing a gun at their heads." I say only half-jokingly.

Daryl scoffs quietly, taking a drag on his own cigarette. "They've lost a lot recently."

"We've all lost things." I retort all too quickly and all too snappishly.

"Not just last night... before." He says vaguely, his voice still low and gravelly. "There was group got inside the walls. Tried to massacre the place."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him. It didn't sound like Negan but, there again... "A group?" I ask, watching his expression which didn't seem to change in the slightest.

"Called 'emselves the Wolves." He answers, his voice never wavering, never betraying any hint of anger or hatred.

"They want to take the place?"

"Nah," He shakes his head. "From what I heard, they talked about 'freeing' people."

"Oh, so they were crazy." I concluded, dropping my cigarette on the floor and stomping it out. I see Daryl's lip twitch upwards from the corner of my eye.

Over the spitting of the slowly dying fire a low moan could be heard from our left. Both of us instinctively look over an see a few roamers emerging from the tree line. Daryl pushes himself off the trucks bumper and drops his cigarette, putting it out on the ground.

"It's getting' dark, the fire's gonna start attracting more of 'em." He mutters before spinning around to get back into the driver's seat.

"Wait—" I stop him quickly, grabbing his wrist. He shakes me off immediately with a glare. "You said you'd show me how to throw knives." I remind him with a smirk.

He stares at me with an incredulous look. "Right now?"

"No time like the present." I shrug.

His eyes linger for a moment longer before he shakes his head slightly and takes a few purposeful steps towards the dead that were approaching us. There was about four of them now and as Daryl took his stance they growled and snarled, gnashing their teeth with so much force you'd think it would hurt – if they could feel pain. I watch as he unsheathes his knife, grabs it by the blade, and after only half a second of readying his aim, releases it. It flies dead straight through the air and hits his target dead in the center of its forehead. All I could think was how I glad I was he didn't hear me following him in the burnt forest.

He turns to me then and with a smug look utters the words; "Your turn."

"That's it," I scoff. "You didn't even tell me what to do." I narrow my eyes at him, irritation clear in my voice. He just shrugs and struts off to retrieve his knife.

I huff in annoyance but take my knife out. The three remaining roamers were getting closer and I decided, well, there's nothing to lose from trying. So, I try to mimicking Daryl's stance and movements, taking my time to aim and then letting the blade go. It does nothing, unsurprisingly. Just bounces straight off the roamers body and aggravates it even more.

"Shit." I mumble as it picks up its pace and comes straight at me.

I quickly try and dig my pocket knife out from my jeans but it was on top of me before I even had the chance. It's decaying skin and sunken eyes right up in my face, flailing its arms and trying to grab me as I held it at arm's length away from me, all the while snapping its mouth open and closed as if to bite me. It forced me to take a few steps back as I struggled with it, the stench of rot making my lip curl into a grimace. I manage to get it onto the ground, by which point Daryl had dealt with the others and come to my rescue. Again. Once it's on the ground he drives his knife through its skull as I struggle to regulate my breath, my heart pounding hard against my rib cage.

"That was entirely your fault." I breathe through ragged breathes as he looks at me with raised eyebrows and scoffs.

"There's more comin', we gotta leave." He says simply, holding out my knife to me.

I take it after looking towards the tree line once more. He was right, there was another dozen or so, slowly making their way towards the fire which was now burning low, orange embers against black. We both get into the truck and pull out of the field, making our way back to the community.

❊

 **EDITED** ✓


	13. TWELVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, so edits are all finished and we're back up to speed. You might notice there are less chapters now, that is because I combined some of the shorter chapters to make them more 'significant' I guess is the best way to put it.  
> In other news, I'm thinking about renaming this story just so you're all aware.  
> The next couple of chapters will be a bit slower, so I'm sorry about that but I'm gonna try to put them out quickly so that we can get back into the good shit :))

Next morning’s daybreak comes and goes while my body rests in a bed that isn’t mine. Sleep had consumed me almost immediately after my head had hit the pillow the previous night, having not slept properly in well over a week at this point either because I was physically unable to or because it wasn’t safe. My body welcomed the chance to rest from all it had endured up until this point. When I awoke a sudden panic washed over me as my mind struggled to remember where I was and why, but slowly the fogginess of sleep cleared and my panic faded, giving way to the overwhelming aching that I felt overtaking my entire body. Everything hurt. Every movement was stiff and I could feel the pounding in my head return with every heartbeat in my chest. It was strange to wake up from such a long, deep sleep only to feel as if I hadn’t slept at all.

I slipped cautiously out of the scratchy covers and placed my feet on the hard wood floors, every step feeling as though I was walking on glass. Eventually, I made my way into the bathroom that joined onto the room I had slept in and quickly stripped of the clothes I hadn’t bothered to take off last night. A long and hot shower awaited me, something that was somewhat of a luxury now and which I savored every last second of. The water soothed my aches and pains, ridding me of all the dirt and blood that had clung to my skin and soaking my matted hair. Somehow, I dragged myself out from under the stream and dried off, but not before catching a glimpse of myself in the steamed-up mirror that hung on the wall. I wiped the glass with my towel and stared at the person I barely recognized as myself.

Thin was never a word I would have used to describe myself before, and it wasn’t an appropriate description even now because the girl that looked back at me from within the glass was nothing but skin and bone. She had hallowed out cheeks and sunken, haunting dark eyes with limp brown hair that hung down her back. I could see her ribs under her skin and the bones of her pelvis sticking out of the top of her thighs. She was bruised and scarred, malnourished and utterly piteous. I failed to comprehend that she could actually be me. The only thing that told me that this foreign reflection was indeed my own, was the image of a snake inked into the skin of her arm which wound its way upwards next to her collarbone. I looked away hastily and left the room, unable to hold her poignant gaze any longer.

I rummaged through the drawers in the room hoping to find any clothes that would even remotely fit me, knowing full well that my own were past the point of salvation now, especially after I had ripped off the bottom half of my shirt to serve as a bandage. I made do with what I could find, tucking shirt that fell off my shoulders awkwardly into the trousers that hung from my waist and securing them with a belt. I retrieved my brother’s pocket knife from my old clothes that sat in a pile on the floor and the blade that Daryl had given me, but paused when something on the nightstand caught my eye. I furrowed my eyebrows and picked up the object, turning it over in my hands. I hadn’t even noticed the copy of _War and Peace_ that had been sat there, having been too tired to even register its presence before I had passed out last night. I flicked it open while a warm smile crept onto my lips and when I did a post-it note fell out onto the floor. I picked it back up and read the message with something like compassion filling my chest;

╔════════════════╗

_Thank you for helping  
Alexandria, I hope you come   
to think of this place as   
your home. I know you said   
you don’t really read but   
just think of this as a house   
warming present. _

_– Denise_

╚════════════════╝

It wasn’t long after this that Aaron had come to find me and tell me exactly what it was that I would be doing today. I was slightly disappointed when he told me I would be on guard at the gate, knowing all too well that I would be spending the best part of my day standing around doing nothing when I could be helping in a more hands-on way. And I had every intention of arguing with him about it, but he wouldn’t allow me to get a word in edge ways as he ushered me up the guard tower and hurried off to do more important things.

And that’s how things were as of present. I leant up against the steel plates of the wall, a rifle strapped to my back as I watched the group below me working to fix the hole made by that truck. Bored out of my mind I began to pace – which Eric had repeatedly told me not to do as it made the whole platform rock – while trying to ignore the urge I had to smoke. I didn’t usually, but I had allowed myself to last night because I felt like I needed it after the week I had had. I regretted it now as my brain’s nagging for nicotine was starting to really irritate me.

“Just run me through it all again.” I say to Eric with a sigh, coming to a halt and watching his hand slowly release the railing he had been clinging to this whole time.

“We’ve been through everything twice already.” He says with a sympathetic look. “There’s not much else I can tell you.” He shrugs his shoulders, turning to look out past the wall.

“Gotta do something to pass the time.” I mumble, leaning against the railing again and placing my head in my good palm.

“I get that you’re frustrated, but there’s not much else we can do right now other than wait…” He says without looking at me. “Things will go back to normal soon enough… well, whatever ‘normal’ is now.”

“Guess I’m just not used to mundane life.” I say under my breath as I continue to watch the others work. It’s true that I wouldn’t be able to help much with the reconstruction of the wall, but there had to be something else I could do other than just stand here.

As it was, I felt like I was being watched. Kept on a short leash, so to say, until they could figure about what kind of person I really was. It wasn’t obvious in the sense that they had someone by my side every second, but when I was on my own, I could feel eyes on me like there were people watching me from behind closed curtains. That’s why I was glad for Eric’s presence. It seemed like as long as I was by someone’s side, no one paid me much attention and Eric didn’t insist on keeping an eye on me at every second. Even now he stood pretty much with his entire back to me. It felt nice to have those few moments to myself. The only catch was that Eric liked to talk a lot. It’s like he couldn’t bare silence for more than a single second, and that made me long to return to the car rides with Daryl who didn’t feel the need to talk most of the time, and who I hadn’t seen since the previous night.

“I get that.” Eric muses. “Some people adjust to living this kind of life again better than others. Hell, I found it hard to sit still when Aaron and I first arrived here. That’s part of the reason we became recruiters.” As he relays this to me, I raise an eyebrow in curiosity. I wouldn’t have thought of Eric as someone who wanted to be a part of all the action. Aaron? Maybe. But certainly not his friendly, overly talkative boyfriend.

“Yeah? Well, got any jobs like that going at the moment?” I ask in a bored tone as I come to stand next to him.

“Probably best not to bring anymore new people in when the wall’s still down.” Eric retorts in a joking manner, though his words were entirely serious. “My point is, I needed to be out there doing something, helping people. And now that I can’t anymore… well, I’m sad about that but I’ve made my peace with it because I was able to have that time out there before.” He shrugs, gesturing to his foot that was wrapped up in heavy bandaging.

“Not to be a bitch, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.” I say deadpan to which he only laughs again.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. What I’m getting at is that some people just need to be out there... You heard about Rick’s group, right? How they ended up here?” He asks, suddenly switching topic. I nod slowly, knowing bits and pieces but never having been told the whole story. Nevertheless, I was confident that I had pieced most of it together. “Most of them found it hard to adjust again after being out in the open for so long. Daryl especially.”

I scoff in response. I didn’t know a lot that was certain about that man, but I was well aware of the fact that he was not exactly civilized – and I was willing to bet that he never had been. This tidbit of information that Eric had given me had helped to confirm this. For a lot of people, I reckon the houses behind these walls and the community here _did_ remind them of their lives before, however it was certainly nothing like the everyday scenery I used to wake up to. It made me feel, even more so, like I didn’t belong. This very obviously middle-class neighborhood was not somewhere I would have thought myself of living in someday – especially with the current state of the world. It wasn’t comforting and it certainly wasn’t reassuring. I had a feeling Daryl felt the same way.

“That’s why Aaron offered my old job to him.” Eric went on as if he hadn’t heard me. I turn to face him now with peaked interest.

“Daryl’s a recruiter?” I question. He nods with a smile, returning my gaze.

“Think it really helped him, too. He could still be out there, but he was also doing something to help this place grow. Makes you feel more a part of it all.” He shrugs.

“Is that why he brought me back here?” I ask, more to myself than him but he answers me anyway.

“Maybe. He wasn’t out there for that reason, but that probably had something to do with it.”

I nod silently and watch the tree line from atop the wall. The shrubbery was swaying in the slight breeze, rustling quietly as leaves idly fell from the canopy of trees above. It was peaceful, but every noise made my eyes dart over in the direction it came from as paranoia ate away at me, pestering me in that annoying voice, telling me that they would be here at any moment. If Daryl had known about who I had been at Sanctuary, would he have still brought me here? I knew the answer to that already. No. That’s why I had lied to him and Rick, keeping what they didn’t need to know to myself.

I would come clean. Eventually. When I knew they were ready.

“You should talk to Rick.” Eric speaks up suddenly, drawing me out of my trance so that I turn to see his dark eyes directly staring at me.

“W-What?” I stumble in slight panic as my mind irrationally comes to the conclusion that he had somehow read my thoughts.

“About going on supply runs.” He clarifies. “I mean, I can put in a good word for you, too. You seem perfectly capable of looking after yourself out there and I think it would be good for you.” He smiles genuinely, making me relax slightly as I realize he’s still on that topic of conversation. I nod slowly.

“Hi up there!” A voice suddenly calls up to us from the ground.

I furrow my eyebrows at Eric who turns around and leans over the railings to see who it is. I follow his lead and lean over to see a woman stood on the ground below us. She had short, grey hair and a slim figure dressed in a floral shirt and cardigan with jeans. She was the exactly the kind of person I would have expected to live in a place like this before. In her hand she holds a small plastic Tupperware.

“Carol.” Eric greets with a smile. “What brings you here?” He asks as the woman, Carol, smiles back.

“Just doing the rounds, bringing everyone an afternoon snack to help lift their spirits. And I heard we had a new face about.” She holds up the Tupperware briefly before turning to look at me with that big, white toothed smile. It was kind of freaky.

“Uh, hi.” I wave briefly, thrown off by the way her eyes latched onto me.

“You’ve heard about Wendy here, then.” Eric says to which she nods.

“Oh, yes. It’s the talk of the town.” She laughs airily in a way that is somehow even more unnerving than her smile. I turn to Eric to watch his reaction but he doesn’t seem phased in the slightest. “Anyway, here.” She continues, passing the Tupperware up to Eric who takes it eagerly and opens it to reveal several large cookies that smell freshly baked.

“You have to try Carol’s cookies, Wendy. She can make them out of anything and they always taste good. I don’t know how she does it.” He chats away as he grabs one from the plastic box and chomps down on it. I take one, too, and inspect it carefully as he hands the box back to the woman.

“Go on, give it a try.” She encourages to which I sigh quietly to myself, knowing I don’t have much choice. I take a small bite and let the flavor hit my taste buds as I chew slowly. It was… surprisingly, really good. She must have seen the change in my expression because her smile, somehow, grew larger.

“Told you.” Eric nudges me. I roll my eyes.

“Didn’t think I’d ever eat a freshly baked cookie again.” I say quietly as I go back in for another bite.

“Well, that’s not all I can make. Tell me, what’s your favorite meal, love?” Carol asks in that overly sweet voice of hers. I watch her smile and feel that hint of unease come flooding back.

“I’m just happy to have food to eat,” I say politely, forcing a smile onto my lips. “no need to go to all the trouble. I’d eat anything at this point.” I shrug.

“Well, if you change your mind come find me.” She says, that smile never once leaving her lips as she turns to walk away from us. As she does, it hits me just what was so weird about her smile. The entire time she had been here, it had never quite reached her beady eyes that seemed to be glued to me alone.

I turn back to Eric, ready to say something, but I stop short not exactly sure what I would say in the first place. She didn’t seem to like me much; maybe she was suspicious of me, what could he do about it? Either way, it was clear that Carol had been here from some time. The way she dressed and acted. It was like the world had never even ended to her. And that pissed me off in a way that I knew was irrational. She had been lucky, I hadn’t. That wasn’t her fault, but still I felt myself grow a little bitter at the thought of people just sitting behind walls all cozy while others out in the open starved, froze, drowned, lost hope and got eaten alive.

“Has she been here this entire time?” I ask Eric as he finishes up his cookie.

“Carol? No. No, she was with Rick’s group.” He says without looking up. I blink at him blankly as I process that, feeling my anger towards her suddenly fizzle away to nothing. Not exactly what I had expected considering what I had heard about Rick’s group, but it wasn’t unlikely that they had taken pity on her and protected her. I couldn’t imagine she was any good with a weapon or combat considering her small frame.

After a moments silence, Eric smiles up at me again. “You should take her up on that offer.”

“Mmhmm, I’m not really bothered about what I eat.” I mumble, remembering all the times I had gone without. Before and after.

“Well, that’s good!” He laughs, making me look up with furrowed eyebrows. “Aaron wanted me to ask if you would want to have dinner with us one night, and knowing him he’d insist on cooking despite not being the best cook. Myself on the other hand, well, I don’t mean to brag but I make a pretty good casserole.” He says with a fond smile as he talks about his boyfriend in that way that couples do.

“Thanks, but…” I begin but he cuts me off.

“Doesn’t have to be tonight, or even this week. Just, if you ever feel like it. Don’t even have to ask, just show up.” He says encouragingly.

“Thanks.” I say simply, a little unsure of what else I should say in my surprise by his offer.

“Now, why don’t you go find Rick and ask him about volunteering for supply runs?” He suggests, motioning with his head.

“Shouldn’t we finish up here first?” I ask.

“Shift’s almost over, I can cover swap-over. Besides, you know what you’re doing here now. You’re a fast learner.” He shrugs as he begins to help me unload the rifle from my back.

“Thank you.” I repeat myself, this time a little more genuinely.

I climb down the ladder, making sure to be careful of my hand as I jump back onto the hot tarmac. The heat slowly begins to rise up under the soles of my boots as I walk. I peer over at the group that are fixing the wall but can see no trace of Rick. Deciding that it was best to just wander round and see whether I ran into him, I take off in the opposite direction. Even as I depart, I can feel that sensation of being watched crawling up the back of my neck again. It was an annoying, nagging feeling that irritated me to no end. I stop dead, looking about me to see if I could spot anyone, but as far as I could tell there was no one there. I sigh and pick my pace back up, writing it off as my paranoia. Though I was sure it wasn’t my imagination this time.

To some extent, I could understand the unease concerning my arrival. I couldn’t have picked a worse time, really, with what had happened and how much the people here had lost. Daryl had told me about the group that had come here to massacre the place last night, it was no wonder that they were hesitant to trust a stranger so shortly after. But that wasn’t my fault and I had nothing to do with it. I had seen it with Sasha first, the way she was so on edge about me having something to do with the ambush, like this was all part of some big plan. Then, with that man at the gate last night and how he had spoken about me as if I wasn’t even there. And again today, that woman, Carol, I had an off feeling about her. It was like she was sizing me up. Despite being on my best behavior, it seemed like I couldn’t escape the skepticism.

“I’m trying, Tina,” I say under my breath. “but I think it would have been easier for everyone if I didn’t.”

As I turn the corner onto a new road, I come to halt in front of a large patch of grass next to one of the buildings. It was littered with wooden boards, on which names were craved unevenly. In the back, a number of freshly dug holes lay unfilled with mounds of dirt piled next to them. A graveyard. I look behind me quickly and, upon seeing no one, take a few steps forward into the middle of it all. It was eerily quite as I stepped around the makeshift gravestones, carefully placing my feet so that I wasn’t stepping on top of any one them. As I walked, I spotted something white out of the corner of my eye. I look over and see a couple of large sheets that had been used as coverings. I knew instantly that there were bodies underneath them. Many, many bodies sat in the hot sun, slowly rotting away. Even as I processed it, I began to smell the distinct scent of death. As I turned to leave, feeling as though I was intruding on something deeply private and personal, I spotted something else that made my shoulders sag.

One particular sheet was covering something significantly smaller, slighter. I could feel my heart in my throat as my feet began to move on their own accord. I knelt at the sheet’s edge and saw two small feet poking out from underneath. Deep, uncontrollable sadness enveloped me as I sat there for a moment and silently cried internally for that child. So much had been lost as of late, it seemed unfair that children had to be dragged into this suffering also. This world was unbelievably cruel to the innocent, and even worse to those of us who were corrupted, yet at least we could handle it. This world wasn’t built for them anymore. No one could protect them from the horrors that hide around every corner. The monsters that lay in wait to bring about pain and suffering. Not just the dead, the living too. That’s what Tina didn’t – or perhaps refused to – understand. I, on the other hand, had always been subject to the worst of humanity, had fallen victim to it too many times to count. No child should have to endure it as I had.

“Paying your respects to the dead?” A voice asked from behind me. I stood up far too quickly and spun around, impulsively reaching for the knife in my pocket. As I did, I came face to face with a man, dark skinned and wearing what appeared to be a clerical collar. He was smiling wide in a way that reminded me of Carol in its eeriness.

“Jesus, you scared the shit outta me.” I say breathlessly as I take a step past him. He turns on the spot, his eyes following me.

“You must be Wendy, I’m Father Gabriel.” He introduces himself, keeping that same smile on his face, his hands folded in front of him. I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Look, if you don’t want me here, just tell me.” I say snappishly.

“Not at all. Anyone is welcome here to mourn for those we have lost.” Father Gabriel says in the same calm monotone.

“I didn’t know them.” I mutter, adverting my eyes back to the main road not wanting to have to look at his creepy smile any longer.

“No, perhaps not, but we are all connected by God.” He continues to smile patiently as if I was a child that was struggling to understand the concept of basic addition. The condescension made any emotions I had been feeling flare up into anger once more and I find myself laughing humorlessly at him.

“There is no God.” I say bluntly, forcing my gaze upon him. “You really think ‘God’ would let this happen?” I spit at him while gesturing to the small, young body of a child that lay not two meters from where we stood.

“We may not understand it, but He has a plan for all of us.” Father Gabriel replies a little more sullenly now as his eyes travel to the white sheet. I shake my head, my jaw clenched tightly.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, _Father_.” I narrow my eyes at him before turning my back to leave the area.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold my temper much longer. Every emotion I felt recently had been pushed back down deep inside of me and if I didn’t leave now, I knew they would all come tumbling out in one big display of explosive, self-destructive behavior. I may have been trying my best to remain passive, but I had never been accommodating of people like him and I wasn’t about to start now. The world was a nasty place and it always had been. There is no bigger picture, no master plan, no paradise that awaited us upon death. This is it. This is what we get.

❊

**EDITED **✓****


	14. THIRTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of edited this chapter, but honestly I don't know how to make this kind of thing exciting so you'll have to excuse the mundane-ness of it. I promise that this is important to later chapters though.

Hours here seemed to tick by slower. Nothing could take away that feeling of expectancy which followed me like a shadow. It was like I was unconsciously waiting for something to go wrong, and yet my first few days in Alexandria passed in relative peace and quiet. Despite this, sleep had not come as easily as my first night in that foreign bed. The seconds ticked past agonizingly slow and each time my eyelids began to drift down and sleep started to reach out to me, the trance was always broken and I found myself wide awake again with barely half an hour having passed. Days were long and boring, but nights were eternal in their eerie darkness and quiet disposition. Thus, I found myself up and about before dawn had even begun to peak over the horizon, unable to remain in bed, tossing and turning while getting nowhere. None of this made the heaviness of my eyes, or the foggy feeling in my head that made me nauseous as I moved about swiftly, any easier to cope with as I equipped myself with my knife and Daryl’s alike – which I had taken to carrying with me at all times despite being behind solid, steel plates.

Annoyingly, I had yet to run into Rick again, either and hadn’t had the chance to talk to him about going _outside_ the walls – which were almost back to their original state at this point. It seemed as though I was always just seconds away from missing him. Whenever I asked it was always, _“I just saw him heading towards…”_ or _“He was talking to… a few minutes ago.”_ but still, no Rick Grimes. I was beginning to get irked by the constant goose chase everybody had me on and was starting to think they were all in on it or something. Either way, I had other plans for this morning.

I headed towards the infirmary as the first rays of sunlight made their way within the walls, people began to emerge from their houses and slowly trickle out into the open to prepare for the day ahead. I had never considered myself to be a morning person, but I wasn’t much of a night owl either, by the normal standard anyway, even before. I just woke up when I had to and went to bed when I could. Always just doing what had to be done. Just existing in that strange stupor between sentience and autonomy. Regardless, there was a sense of accomplishment that came with being up in time to watch the sun rise, a certain tranquility overcame you at this time in the morning which you couldn’t experience at any other hour. I was never quite sure what it was, maybe the crisp feeling of the air or the cheerful tunes of the birds.

But I couldn’t quite enjoy it as fully as I wanted to this morning. My mind was hazy from the lack of sleep and although my primary reasoning for seeking out Denise was to get my bandages changed, I was also hoping to snag some aspirin while I was there. I pried open the door slowly and stepped into the main room of the infirmary before shutting it behind me again. It was dead silent inside. Just a few days prior this place had been full to its limit with the sick and injured whereas now it was more like a ghost town. It made sense in theory. Stabilize the patient as best as possible before sending them back to their own home to recover, that way there was room to work if there was an emergency. Still it was considerate juxtaposition from the last time I was in here.

There was no one inside that main room on the first floor and I assumed Denise was upstairs somewhere dealing with some of the more critical cases that needed to be constantly monitored. I considered calling out to her, but it was still early and I wasn’t that insensitive to the importance of sleep to other people. Instead, I found myself wandering around the room slowly, casting my gaze about in absentminded thought. I hummed to myself quietly as I did so. I hadn’t really been able to examine the room before when I was here, not that it was very exciting. It was just one of the old, unused houses that had been stripped bare and filled with medical equipment. However, in one of the cabinets at the back of the room I found the much-needed aspirin I was hoping to encounter. I took the lid off and shook the bottle to look at its contents. There was about half left. I took one and replaced the lid before placing it back on the shelf.

As I popped the tablet in my mouth, I looked around Denise’s desk in curiosity. The books were still all there, stacked high and spread out across the surfaces. There was also various notebooks and loose pages with scruffy handwriting covering every available space. I was nothing if not nosey, so I moved a page here and there, not enough so that it was noticeable but enough so that I could look at what was underneath. Medical notes, reminders, and lots of short hand that was barely legible. Next to it all was a pad of sticky notes not unlike the one that had been in the book Denise had left for me. I smiled and picked up the pen that was next to the pad before writing out a short note:

╔════════════════╗

_Thanks for the book._   
_Took an aspirin, hope you_   
_don’t mind._

_– Wendy_

╚════════════════╝

I figured it would be easier to come back later rather than just waiting for her to return and, besides, I shouldn’t just take supplies without saying anything. Common courtesy, and all that. At least that’s what I told myself, but I knew it was more to do with that fear ingrained in me from Sanctuary that I couldn’t shake free of. If you took something, you had to pay it back and if you got caught stealing then you’d be punished until _he_ thought you had learned your lesson. I put the pen back down after I finished writing my message and suddenly feel that sensation of being watched again creeping down my spine.

“What are you doing?” Someone from behind me asked, his tone rather snappish and confrontational. I jumped at the sudden noise and managed to knock half of the books and notes off the desk as I did so.

“Shit,” I mumble as I look down at the mess I’d made. I turned to the person and let out a small breath of relief. “Christ, kid. What is it with you people and sneaking up on me like that?” I say lightheartedly, bringing a hand to my chest to feel my now slowing pulse.

He only narrowed his eyes at me – or more appropriately ‘eye’, singular as the right side of his face was covered completely by bandages which wrapped around the back of his head. It seemed like he was attempting to cover up most of the bandage with his long hair. Falling just past his shoulders, the chestnut brown color framed pale skin and sharp facial feature which were dusted with faint freckles, brought forth by the sun. Despite the bandages, his most decerning feature was his remaining left eye which harbored a strikingly bright blue hue, contrasting the thick dark lashes which surround it. He was very obviously still young, yet his face was that of someone who had lived a thousand lives and remembered every agonizing second.

“Who are _you_?” He demanded, his voice cold and guarded as I bent down to pick up what I had knocked off. I noticed the way he leant up against the doorframe. He was obviously using it for support, but in a way which was subtle. I honestly wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t know who he was from the very moment I had seen his face and for that reason knew that he definitely should not be standing up right now.

“Oh, right. I’m Wendy,” I introduce myself while placing the things back onto the desk. “and you must be Rick’s son.” I add in hopes of him realizing that I wasn’t a threat.

“What are you doing here?” He asks in similar fashion to his first question, clearly not interested in my name.

“Well, I was actually looking for Denise, if yo—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“Not _here_ ,” He stresses. “what are you doing in Alexandria?” He clarifies, his tone incredibly impatient and increasingly annoyed. I raise my eyebrows at him. I would put up with a lot of shit, but this kid needed to learn some damn manners.

“Right, I guess you weren’t told.” I mutter, resisting the urge to let my temper get the better of me. “I arrived here the night the wall collapsed. Daryl brought me.” I explain briefly.

The kid pauses, looking me over before responding. “Denise isn’t here. She’s doing house calls.”

I nod. “I was just leaving anyway—”

“Why were you snooping around down here?” He cuts in before I can finish. I sigh, his constant questioning reminding far too much of his dad.

“I wasn’t snooping,” I correct, exasperation evident in my tone. “I took some aspirin so I left a note.” I hold up the sticky note for him to see but he barely glanced at it.

“So, you just happened to turn up when everything was happening?” He continues his interrogation.

“Daryl brought me here.” I repeat with a shrug in an attempt to hide my growing irritation.

“You were just… out there, alone?”

“Look, kid,” I begin, leaning back against the desk and holding onto the sides. “I don’t think you should be standing up right now.” I say, noticing how he was seemingly getting paler by the second and his hands had started to shake mildly. He shakes his head.

“I’m fine.” He mutters through gritted teeth.

“Okay, but I’m not answering anymore questions until you sit down.” I say, gesturing to the empty bed a few feet from him before crossing my arms. He looks irritated by this and for a second looks as if he was about to say something but stops.

Slowly, he pushes up from the doorframe and moves over to the bed and perches on the side. His shoulders sag slightly as he sits down, and I feel a little bit better about him possibly passing out on me. I smile fleetingly.

“You didn’t give me your first name, Mr. Grimes.” I point out in a lighthearted manner once more to which he looks at me silently for a second.

“It’s Carl.” He says finally.

“Well, Carl, to answer your question; no, I wasn’t alone but the people I was with took everything we had and left.” I explain as I relax my arms back down to my side. His eyebrows furrow.

“Why—” He begins but I stop him.

“Ah, I’ve let you interview me for long enough.” I say without pause. “From now on, we take turns with our questions.” I tell him, not giving him a choice on the matter. I wasn’t about to let him have complete control over this conversation, and he was clearly far too inquisitive for his own good.

“What?” He snaps incredulously, his voice louder now.

“You ask a question; I ask a question, and repeat.” I shrug, simplifying it down to the basics.

“No—”

“Then we’re done.” I say simply, pushing myself off of the desk.

“Wait.” He interjects quickly. “What’s the question?”

“Who did that to you?” I ask, gesturing to his face, unable to find any tactical way of going about asking my question. I watch as he physically flinches and averts his eyes before relaxing his face back into a blank expression.

“Just some kid.” He answers quieter now. “He wasn’t even aiming for me.”

“Jesus…” I interject within the release of a breath, horrified by the idea that this had been the work of a someone the same age as or younger than the kid in front of me. I thought it might have been the group that Daryl told me about… The Wolves or whatever they called themselves, but this was much worse.

“Doesn’t matter anyway.” Carl shrugs, his voice taking on a new strength that I knew was just for show. “He’s dead now.”

The way he said that last part was so cold, I almost forgot that the person I was talking to was still just a teenager. Even though I knew this façade had to be for show, it was still possible that he did think like that deep down. And I wouldn’t even be able to blame him because that’s just how it was now. People have always died, but they die more frequently in this hell we live in, and there’s nothing we can do about that. And when someone whose hurt you dies now, in a world where are no laws or jurisdictions, well, it almost feels good. I wondered if Carl felt relief at the thought, whether he found some sort of sick justice in the fate of the kid who took half his eyesight. Six feet under the ground, buried in an unmarked grave laying in wait for the worms to start eating at his flesh while decomposition took hold. If he did, could I really judge him for that? After all I had done? Still, I couldn’t forget what I had seen in Alexandria’s graveyard. Those feet just barely poking out from under the sheet, how small they were. Was that the same kid who had shot Carl? I had looked at that mound covered by white fabric and thought about the unfairness of it all… but maybe that kid wasn’t so innocent.

“Your turn.” I say quietly after a momentary silence has passed between us.

“What?” He looks up at me again, confusion painted across his expression as he snaps out of his own thoughts.

“Your turn,” I repeat. “to ask a question.”

“Right…” He trails off, having clearly forgotten what he was going to ask. “Why did they leave you behind?”

I shrug in response, not really wanting to talk about this again. “Why does anyone do anything these days.”

“That’s not a proper answer.” Carl insists when it’s clear that’s all I had to say.

“It’s answer enough.” I say simply.

“That’s not fair!” He snaps at me, gripping the sheet of the bed he was sat on. I smile.

“Nothing ever is.”

He scoffs at me, his anger once again evident. “Fine then, what’s your question?” He asks in a huff.

“Don’t have anymore.” I respond, pushing myself off of the desk once again.

“What?”

“You’ll just have to wait for me to come up with something.” I smile as I stand, checking to make sure my note was still on the desk. Carl watches me through his narrowed eye unable to find anything to say. “Tell Denise I was looking for her.” I say in my parting goodbye before making my way out the door once more.

I could tell he was miffed by my dismissal of our conversation, but I really was getting sick of the same old questions over and over again at this point, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t uneasy after what he had told me. If he wanted answers that badly he could always ask his dad. I was slightly surprised that Rick hadn’t mentioned anything about me to his son yet, I suppose it was because he didn’t want to stress him out anymore while he was recovering but it was still a little strange to keep him in the dark about it all, especially considering the gossip that surrounded my appearance at the community. I certainly wasn’t unaware of that. He was going to find out sooner or later.

The community was starting to come to life now, more people were getting around as the noise of day-to-day life filled my ears. My headache continued to prevail over the aspirin and even thrived with the added stimulation. Truthfully, all I wanted to do was sleep but I knew that even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to. Several people passed me by and continued their prolonged stares and hushed talk, I was almost getting used to it but luckily the sound of an engine starting up drowned out most of the chatter. I furrowed my eyebrows at the sudden eruption of noise and looked for the source when I saw Daryl and a small group of others standing by a pick-up, seemingly in the middle of a serious conversation. What caught my eye the most was the fact that they all had guns, suggesting that they were going outside the walls.

I picked up my pace slightly as I made my way over. The group slowly dispersed as I approached and Daryl was about to get inside the truck before I caught up to him.

“Hey, Daryl…” I call out, stopping him from getting any further. He looks up at me with his usual un-telling expression and hops down onto the tarmac again.

“Whatcha need?” He asks, his voice low and gruff.

“Actually, I was meaning to talk to Rick about supply runs. Are you going on one soon?” I ask, gesturing to the truck. He follows my gaze before fixing his eyes back on me.

“Anything ya wanna ask him ya can ask me.” He asserted, his tone suddenly taking on something of a defensive nature as he avoided my question.

“Well, okay then.” I mutter, a little insulted. “Is there any chance I could join?” I ask him, watching as the people behind him begin to load themselves into other vehicles.

“Ya just got here; ya already wanna leave?” He says dismissively. I furrow my eyebrows at him, caught off by what he was suggesting. I had thought that he would at least hear me out, but as it was, he seemed dead set on reprimanding me for seemingly no reason. Still, I wasn’t about to be disheartened so easily.

“No.” I interjected with irritation in my tone. “I want to do more to help around here. Look, I know how to handle myself and I’m good under pressure.” I say in an attempt to persuade him.

“Ya got a job to do already.” He shrugs as if that ended everything. He turned to check the truck bed, attempting to signal the end of the conversation but I was far from done.

“Yeah, and I can’t stand sitting about all day.” I argue as I follow him.

“Ain’t my problem.” He grumbles as if he thought I would have given up.

“It’s not like I’m allowed to be on guard by myself anyway.” I snap, finally losing all the patience I had left. “Whether I turn up or not someone will be there. Don’t you think it’s more beneficial to everyone if there’s an extra pair of hand out there looking for supplies.” I continue on as he remains with his back to me.

“Won’t be nowhere to keep the supplies if ya don’t shut the hell up and do your job!” He snaps back as he turns to tower over my much smaller frame, his voice low as he tries to keep from making a scene. He moves back an inch consciously. “We got enough runners.”

I scoff, not nearly as intimidated as I’m sure he thought I would be. “Where’s Rick?” I ask in a bitter, hurtful tone. He just turns away from me again.

“Ya ain’t gonna get a different answer.” He says simply.

“Yeah, well I’m just making sure.” I retort in a snide manner, thoroughly pissed off.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, clearly done with me entirely now as he keeps his back to me.

I huff in irritation before turning on my heel and walking away without another word. It seemed as though everyone was determined to get on my last nerve today and the sun had only just barely peaked over the multitude of rooftops which crowded the skyline. I wasn’t sure why Daryl was being such a dick to me but it wasn’t a great feeling considering that he was one of the only people I thought didn’t have a problem with me being here, since it was his doing. Unless he had begun to think that he’d made a mistake. What did I care? He had made his bed and he could goddamn lie in it for all I gave a shit about, but I wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. He, and everyone else for that matter, would just have to suck it up.

❊


	15. FOURTEEN

Avoidance was how I dealt with most of my problems. At least until they refused to be ignored anymore, that is. But for the time being, I was fine with just pretending that they didn’t exist. This had always been my way of coping with things and that hadn’t changed when the world ended. Right now, this meant that anyone outside of my immediate circle of trust did not exist to me anymore. This included Daryl. He had become something of a separate issue that I had no energy to deal with as it was. He had become dismissive and overall defensive with anything that even remotely involved myself and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. Frankly, I had given up trying to understand him, or anyone else for that matter. I was fed up with playing the role of ‘girl-next-door’. All the smiles and fake laughter, the idle small talk and the pretending that I couldn’t see them all watching my every move. I was sick of all of it, and I gave up trying.

I began to revert back to what I was used to; keeping to myself and staying out of anything that didn’t already involve me. I only really left the house when it was absolutely necessary and even then, I barely spoke to anyone unless they spoke to me first. This meant that the only people I regularly talked to were Eric and sometimes Aaron, too. They seemed largely unphased by my sudden change and continued to engage me in conversation whenever the chance arose. Most of the time, these were the days that Eric and I were on guard together. If he wasn’t the one with me then I didn’t feel the need to talk. It would be either Rosita or Spencer if not Eric, and I rarely said a word to either of them. The latter quickly gave up in trying to make conversation, but Rosita had never been particularly talkative; I think she was thankful for the silence as much as I was.

My general aversion to people didn’t stop any of the petty gossip which surrounded me, however, in fact it only seemed to make things worse. It was like they had stopped trying to be discrete about their suspicions, instead opting to be loud and obnoxious in their ‘concerns’ in hopes of getting some sort of reaction out of me to prove themselves right. There was no way they thought I couldn’t hear them, standing only a foot away from me in the corridor of the pantry, whispering away in a tone so irritating I would have preferred to have listened to nails on a chalkboard. I had heard all they had to say at this point but that didn’t mean that I was immune to it.

 _“Don’t you think it’s odd that everything goes bad and suddenly_ she _turns up on our doorstep?”_

_“You’re right, she’s definitely hiding something.”_

_“Can’t imagine what Rick was thinking, just letting her stay here like that.”_

It was at that point I had slammed down the can of beans I had been holding and left before my urge to punch one of them square in the nose got any worse. I knew it wasn’t a good idea to start a fight, but I couldn’t just stand there and listen to them rattling on either. I was hoping the loud clanging of metal on metal had at least scared them, but I didn’t wait around long enough to find out. I was beginning to think that I should just take my chances out in the open. It’s not like I’d ever planned on surviving much longer after leaving Sanctuary anyway. I wasn’t stupid, I knew that pretty much the only way I’d ever be free of the Saviors was to be free of my entire, pathetic existence; but hope has a strange way of making you believe in something that you know is impossible. I had believed that this place could be a new start, and maybe even a way to obtain that freedom. And I had believed that because I wanted to be like Tina, but Tina was dead now. Maybe I should have been too.

That sinking feeling in my chest had returned to me and hopelessness, in all it’s painful glory, was setting in once more. Night had begun to fall by the time I had finished my shift as guard and the thought of going back to that house made me feel even worse. It was far too big a place to live in alone. Before, I used to complain about how small my apartment was but now that I had more space than I knew what to do with, I realized just how much I would have hated living in a suburban house – as had been my dream since I was little. There was absolutely nothing to fill the silence with and I found myself feeling even more isolated than when I had been locked up in that tiny, concrete cell. As well as this, there was barely anything left in the fridge because of the incident at the pantry which, subsequently, meant I hadn’t picked up any food like I’d planned and was seriously averse to going back there any time soon.

Even if it was an option, I didn’t know how much I would be able to do anyway. For the last few days, my hand had become more and more painful to the point that, even the slightest wrong move would have me sucking in a breath through gritted teeth while pain seared up my arm. I knew that this was something that I should talk to Denise about, but I was yet to find a moment when the infirmary was completely void of any other people. And that was the only way I would go in there again. Maybe I was stupid for being so stubborn, but that was another thing that would never change.

I stopped short in the dark street, only lit up by the faded orange glow that radiated from inside the other houses. I thought back to my conversation with Eric the other day and, with a small sigh, slowly began walking again. I passed by every house and looked at the numbers carefully, trying to remember just which one was the one I was looking for. After a moment’s hesitation, I approached the porch of what I deemed to be the right place and before I could give myself time to reconsider, knocked on the white painted door a couple of times. I stood there for what seemed like a lifetime, the evening air slowly becoming colder as the seconds passed, until I could distinguish footsteps on the other side of the wall. The door opened wide and I was suddenly face to face with the person, a slightly surprised, yet happy expression crossing the features of their face as they saw me there in the dim electric lighting.

“Wendy.” Aaron said my name as if to solidify the fact that it was actually me stood on his front porch at this time of night. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise. What can we do for you?” He asked, opening the door all the way so that he could speak to me properly. I smiled fleetingly.

“I was hoping that dinner invitation was still open.” I say in a tone that somewhat contained some of my old confidence. His face split open into a full grin as he began to nod.

“Of course, it is!” He reassured me before ushering me inside.

As I stepped over that threshold, I couldn’t help but notice the sudden warmth which entered my body. It was beginning to get colder now as the sun disappeared again behind the distant hills, but not nearly cold enough warrant this very sudden – and very noticeable – change in temperature. It wasn’t particularly hot inside Aaron and Eric’s home, but the feel of the place made it seem warmer. The yellow tinted lighting and the oak furniture, coupled with the strange array of trinkets and memorabilia which lined the entrance-way’s walls, all gave the place a certain personality. It somehow managed to combine the couple’s two distinct personalities in an effective way, and it was very much what I would consider ‘homey’. Seeing this made me realize just how thoroughly depressing my own place was. I didn’t usually turn on the lights, for one thing, something else that had become second nature to me over the course of the apocalypse. Leaving a source of light on for an extended period of time not only made you visible to the dead, but it also made you a target for any unwanted visitors.

The other thing ‘my’ house lacked was that sense of personality. I didn’t have anything that was really _mine_ left. It had all gotten lost or left behind over time and I was hesitant to hold onto, or get attached to anything anymore. Excluding my brother’s knife, there wasn’t anything I would consider sentimental left in my possession. The more I thought about this, the more I really resented the idea of going back there tonight. Loneliness wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling to me; my whole life had been spent in some variation of the feeling. But at least when there were still more people alive than dead walking around, I could usher myself into a taxi and head to the bar to drown it all out. Find someone to make me feel a little less desolate, even if it was just for that night. That wasn’t an option anymore.

“Eric, Wendy’s going to be joining us for dinner.” Aaron said to his boyfriend as he led me through to another brightly lit room. The dining room wasn’t overly large, just big enough to accommodate a four-person oak table and chairs.

“Well, she’s in luck then because I’m the one cooking tonight.” Eric says in a lighthearted manner as he finishes setting down a pitcher of water. He looks up at me and smiles in greeting before grabbing another place matt and setting it up for a third spot at the table. I watch as Aaron rolls his eyes in response, but smiles nonetheless.

We sit and chat idly for a while until Eric returns from the kitchen with his aforementioned casserole. It’s served and we begin to dig in. The food was certainly good, there was no doubting that, and when I mentioned this, I noted the smug look on Eric’s face as he raised an eyebrow towards Aaron who looked just as unimpressed as before. It was all so… normal. I would never have guessed that places like this still existed a week and a half ago, but here I was; eating dinner in a pristine, middle-class neighborhood as if the world hadn’t been in disarray for years now. I envied the people that had been here since the beginning. They didn’t know the kinds of things you were forced to do out there. They hadn’t lost like we had. They still had their families, friends. Hell, they could even throw dinner parties and drink for the fun of it, not because they had things they never wanted to be sober enough to remember.

“That reminds me,” Eric says in response to some comment Aaron had made. “Wendy, have you spoken to Rick yet?” He asks while I pile another load of food onto my fork. I stop and avert my eyes at the question, remembering my conversation with Daryl.

I shake my head. “Haven’t seen much of him lately.” I answer, keeping my eyes on my fork.

“That makes two of us. Seems like he’s always working on something recently.” Aaron shrugs as he takes a bite of his own food. I put my fork down a pick up the glass of wine Eric had poured for me, taking a long, drawn out sip.

“I did speak with Daryl about it, though.” I say quietly as I place the glass back down.

“And?” Eric prompts, watching me expectantly.

I clear my throat uneasily, the dryness of the wine making it scratchy. “He said no.”

Eric and Aaron exchange a brief look that I can’t quiet decipher before Aaron speaks up again. “Just ‘no’?” He asks, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Well,” I say between mouthfuls. “there were a few other choice words, but that’s the short answer.”

Another look passes between the two, this time at lot longer. It seemed as though they were having some kind of silent conversation that I couldn’t follow. I guess being with someone for long enough means that you don’t really need words to communicate anymore. Either way there was a long silence in which neither of them said anything.

“I’ll talk to him.” Aaron says through a sigh finally, breaking their gaze and turning back to me.

“No, it’s fine, Aaron.” I shake my head dismissively. “You don’t have to.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but I can tell he wasn’t going to listen to me. As for Eric, his expression had changed drastically, now a mix between deep thought and something bitter, almost like disappointment. It was a stark difference to what I was used to from him; he was always cheerful and chatty, but now that he wasn’t the silence was icy. I take another sip from my wine glass, eager to keep the topic of conversation moving.

“So, what’s with all the number plates?” I ask as I put the glass back down once more. Gesturing to the hallway where I had seen them all stacked as I walked in. There had to be at least a dozen or so, and it seemed an odd thing to me to collect.

“Oh,” Aaron interjects, his expression returning to normal. “you saw those? We started collecting them when we started out as recruiters.” He explains as he cradles his own glass in his hand absentmindedly.

“We’re trying to get one from each state.” Eric pipes up, also seemingly forgetting all about our previous conversation. “Though I was the one that found most of them, so now that I’m not out there our collection will most likely remain incomplete.” He adds in an undertone, his joking manner once again returning. Aaron side eyes him.

“Uh, no.” He says slowly, turning to the other. “I seem to remember it being the other way around, actually.” He remarks.

“Oh, really?” Eric says without looking at him, picking up his glass and slowly taking a sip. I can’t help the small laugh that escapes my lips. Their petty back-and-forth seems to be a distinguishing staple in their relationship and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t even slightly amusing to observe.

“How long have you two been together?” I ask as a small smile remains pressed to my lips. They both look up at me.

“Oh, gosh…” Eric remarks in thought. “It was almost two years when everything happened.” He recalls, clearly not entirely sure how much time had passed in between then and now. I’m not sure anyone really knew for sure at this point.

“Must be at least four by now.” Aaron interjects. “Maybe five?” He adds after another moment’s consideration, looking to Eric for confirmation. The latter nods in agreement.

“What about you?” Eric asks suddenly, turning to look at me. “Were you with someone… before?” He adds delicately, obviously knowing the weight of that question and what kind of memories and wounds it could reopen. Another long drink from my wine glass as I consider how to answer his question. The answer really wasn’t that complicated, in all honesty but the topic was one I would rather avoid if I could.

“No… I was never really the ‘long-term-relationship’ type.” I shake my head, keeping my tone light to avoid all of the pity that usually came with that kind of answer. I never did like talking about my ‘love life’ and with the present state of the world, I didn’t think I would have to again. “My brother, though, he was your typical hopeless romantic.” I say as I swirl the wine left in my glass, watching it slowly drip down the sides. “Met his wife at nineteen, married at twenty-one. They were even expecting their first kid by the time he was twenty-four.”

A small smile spreads across my features as I talk, remembering just how excited he had been the day he told me. He had always wanted to have his own family and I was truly happy for him and Mekella. There had been hugs and tears, congratulations and questions. They talked about how they had been trying since the prior winter and how hard it had been to keep quiet about it for so long. How they were already thinking about names and my brother’s quick assertion that he wanted a boy. Those were the happiest moments. The times when they seemed to glow with pride and the promise of hope for the future. But that all changed, in a way that no one saw coming. My smile faded back into a bleak expression before I brought the crystal glass back to my lips and finished its contents quickly.

“Excuse me.” I say quietly after the silence between us had gone on long enough.

I ignore both of their concerned expressions as I stand from my seat and make my way over to the door. As I shut it behind me, I felt all the heat in my body leave once more as the chill of the night overtook me. That cozy, warm feeling that had encompassed me since I stepped foot into Aaron and Eric’s home had completely vanished now, leaving behind nothing but the damp chill of cold that came with the deepening darkness that surrounded as I stepped out onto the porch and leant up against the railings. I dug into my pocket and pulled out an almost empty, crumpled box of Marlboro’s that I had managed to get my hand on. I placed one between my lips and lit it hastily with the lighter I kept on hand. I felt my lungs burn up as I breathed in the smoke, providing some type of warmth to my body.

No street lights kept Alexandria lit up as the night rolled in, only the shifting rays of moonlight kept the tops of the trees and the calming ripples in the lake visible to the eye. But the sky was particularly cloudy tonight, and the light came in uneven periods. One moment I watched as the calm breeze created a sparkling on the water’s surface, glittering like jewels under a spotlight, and the next I was plunged into shadow unable to see anything, feeling helplessly lost as the clouds passed over. The illusion of that bright light broken in an instance.

I heard the creaking of the door opening as the porch light turned on once more, followed my footsteps. I didn’t turn around to look at who it was, I didn’t need to. I just continued to smoke my cigarette absently. He came to stand next to me and leant on the railings just the same. For a moment he didn’t speak, maybe he was waiting for me to acknowledge him but I didn’t feel the need. He sighs quietly, his breath creating a small misty cloud in the cool air, then turns to face me.

“Is there a particular reason you came here tonight?” Aaron asks, his voice quieter than usual.

“What? No.” I shake my head, keeping my eyes fixated on the street in front of us.

“You just… don’t seem yourself.” He adds, the concern once again evident in his voice. I scoff under my breath. That was rich, considering that he hadn’t really known me long enough to determine what was otherwise normal for me. He continues. “I’ve never heard you talk about before…”

“Must be the win talking.” I mutter in response, watching the faint glow on the end of the cigarette in between my fingers.

“Is this about what happened in the pantry?” His sudden question catches me off guard and I turn to return his gaze after blowing out another lung full of smoke.

“I don’t know what you mean.” I lie, keeping my voice low.

“Olivia told us about what happened.” He goes on as if I hadn’t said anything. I sigh, knowing that he wasn’t going to let it go yet.

“And by ‘us’ you mean…” I trail off turning myself around so that my back was against the white rails.

“Look, I know this has been hard on you,” Aaron says from besides me, ignoring the fact that I really wasn’t in the mood to talk. “but they’ve been through a lot recently, lost a lot and not just people. We’ve never had a problem with the wall before, we didn’t think we ever would. For most of them, it’s made them question their safety. They’re on edge and they’re looking for something to blame.”

I huff out another cloud of smoke while he talks, feeling a sting of pain in my hand which I ignore. Mulling over his words in my head, I remain silent for a moment watching the ground at my feet and how the wooden planks are lined up. I didn’t want to talk about any of this if I could avoid it, the memory just made the sensation of anger rise in me again, making me feel bitter and resentful towards the people here. What gave them the right to blame me for their misfortunes? It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried, time and time again I had but it was never enough.

“Still, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth when the person that helped you doesn’t even want you here.” I mumble, not really thinking about what I was saying.

“Daryl?” He asks, he eyebrows furrowing. “Of course, he does. We all do.”

His attempt to reassure me forces a scoff out of my mouth and I turn to face him again. “He sure has a funny way of showing it then.” I say bitterly, remembering our conversation and feeling a whole new wave of ostracism hit me. I quickly place the cigarette back between my teeth to fill the silence. Aaron turns to look out at the lake.

“I must admit, I was surprised when you told us he refused your help.” He begins again, an undertone of discontentment present in his voice. “I would have thought he of all people could sympathize with your situation. I think you two are more alike than either of you are aware of.” He shrugs, watching as the clouds once again move across the sky and allow the moonlight to shine on the lake’s surface.

I hum quietly in response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. The fact was, I hadn’t actually spoken to him much since after that first night. And the last time I had didn’t go as smoothly as I’d expected. I still wasn’t entirely convinced of his character and I certainly had no idea what his thoughts on me were. The way I saw it, it didn’t matter as long as he continued to allow me to ignore him as I had been. Though I would be lying if I said it didn’t bother me. The not knowing of what he was thinking. Him and everyone else here.

“He didn’t feel a part of this place either when he first arrived.” Aaron goes on, though I was only half listening at this point. “That’s why I offered him Eric’s old job, why I gave him that old motorcycle to fix up. Hell, we even had dinner with him just like this. It’s what gave me the idea to invite you. It seemed to help him.”

“You had dinner with him?” I question him, one eyebrow raised. I didn’t quite believe that somehow. He hums with a nod.

“Yeah, though I must admit you’ve got far more sophisticated table manners.” He chides, pushing me with his shoulder lightly. I can’t help the small snort of laughter that I let out. I could imagine it all too well.

“’Sophisticated’ is not a word I would have ever used to describe myself.” I muse after my laughter had faded. Aaron smiles, seemingly happy that I wasn’t quite so mopey anymore.

A silence follows in which another cloud passes over the moon, blocking out the natural light. I can still see though, through the dull glow of electric lighting let out by the porch-light. It was calming to just sit there, not saying a word to each other. I wasn’t quite so cold anymore; it was like the simple presence of another person was enough to drive the chill out of my body. My lungs heated up again as I inhaled more smoke, my cigarette more than half-way burnt by now and grey ash falling from the end periodically. I could still feel that gnawing thought at the back of my mind, the one I had started off the night with, but now at least I could drown it out somewhat with Aaron’s words as he spoke up once more. 

“You know, this’ll pass,” He says quietly as if he was worried his words would break the tranquility we had created out on that front porch. “just give it time. Once things begin to settle down and go back to normal, they’ll realize they were wrong. As for Daryl… well, we’ve all got a lot on our plates at the moment. He’ll come around.” As his words penetrated the darkness around us, I couldn’t help but dwell on them as they hung in the air. I knew he was well meaning, but I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe in what he had said. They knew I didn’t belong here; I knew it too. Only time would change that, but I didn’t know if I had the time.

“Okay,” Is the only word I can manage to push out past my lips. Aaron looks at me, clearly hearing the uncertainty in my voice.

“We want you here, Wendy. We need you.” He stresses, piercing me with those bright eyes of his, the light of the moon keeping his face lit in a pale hue. “I know you’ll fit in just fine here once you find your feet.”

“Huh,” I hum, knowing that his words sounded familiar to me. I smile faintly, resting my head in my hand. “you know, Denise said something similar.”

“And you should believe it,” Aaron insists. “especially when two people have said the same thing… Just—… promise me you’ll keep trying?”

His last request snaps me to full attention. I watch him carefully for moment, wondering if he could somehow know about what I had made myself promise before. No, I was being paranoid again, his words were just a coincidence. Either that or the universe was just mocking me. I had heard people say that fate had a twisted sense of humor, but it seemed to me that she just loved to watch me squirm under her interference. I sigh, watching the rest of my cigarette burn down to the end before dropping it onto the ground below. How was it that I always found myself making promises I couldn’t keep, no matter how small they were? I _had_ tried, so many times before and for so many different people. It never made any difference in the end though; I would always end up right where I’d began. Still, it’s not like I could tell Aaron any of this.

“I promise.” I say quietly without looking at him, knowing full well that it was just another empty, insignificant string of words that would never mean anything.

❊


	16. FIFTEEN

The days had been getting hotter, each one bringing with it a humid atmosphere that hung around and made everyone agitated. We were long overdue a heavy bout of rain, but it didn’t look as though that would be happening anytime soon. It was in this overwhelming heat that I was glad not to be out in the open and on my own. There was plenty of water here, enough even that the soil in the garden that Maggie had started could stay damp despite the heatwave. I was nothing but thankful for this; water rationing is my least favorite kind of rationing and it would no doubt cause unrest within the community. People were already irritable enough because of the uncomfortable warmth, myself included. It had done nothing to help with my lack of sleep, even with the windows fully open there just wasn’t enough fresh air to cool me. I could feel it taking a toll on my body. I had begun sporting large dark circles under my eyes and a constant aching feeling in my muscles, this coupled with the unbearable heat had resulted in a persistent migraine that had stuck with me over the last couple of days.

During this time, I replayed my conversation with Aaron over and over again in my head, but that feeling of despondency never once ceased. I began to dwell on the myriad of promises I had made throughout my life, wondering if they had been doomed from the beginning or if it was just my lack of resolve. It didn’t seem to matter what they were, all of them, big and small had never been kept and this fact played on loop in my mind like a Ferris wheel of my failures. These thoughts consumed me day and night so that, if it wasn’t the heat that kept me awake, it would be my own mind that deprived me of rest; always alert with the regrets and guilt that lay heavily on my soul.

When had I become this person? I barely recognized myself, not just physically but mentally, too. I was selfish, a coward and at some point, I had reasoned that my life should come before everyone else’s. Even if that meant letting other people die so that I could live. And worse still, I was more than willing to go through with it, had I not already proved that when those Saviors blocked our path and threatened Sasha and Abraham? I didn’t even try to stop it; all I could think about was myself. It made me sick to remember.

At some point after my brother I had lost myself. I thought that I needed to become stronger if I wanted to survive and that the only way to do that was to become an emotionless shell of the person I used to be. When I met the Saviors, I had idolized them for their ability to make the tough decisions without even batting an eye, even if it meant sacrificing others. But what I failed to see was the fact that, deep down, they were all cowards hiding behind their personas of false apathy. And I became just like them. I pushed down my feelings of doubt, desperately trying to hide all weaknesses from the outside world.

But I wasn’t at Sanctuary anymore. I was already free from them. Almost an entire month had passed since I first arrived here and not a single trace of the Saviors had appeared. I had inadvertently begun to relax, forgetting entirely that they could still be looking for me. Or rather, not forgetting but believing they had chosen to give up because, if they were still looking for me, they would have already found me. With this, I realized I could let that cold, hardened part of my personality fade away because I didn’t need to pretend to be strong to survive anymore. I had to find myself again, before it was too late. This was my second chance and I wasn’t going to waste it.

But most importantly, I wanted to keep my promise. For once in my damn life.

However, building walls up is a lot easier than knocking them down again. I had been conditioned into the person I was now by my own fear and determination to survive. It was going to take more than just my mindset to change that. It had been far too long since I had allowed myself to depend on others, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to give up again. I was going to keep on trying even if it did nothing to change situation. My previous hostile nature had pushed me to the edge of the community, making it clear to everyone that I didn’t _belong_ here and for that reason it would be impossible to gain the trust of these people by any sort of normal means now.

My one saving grace was the fact that certain members of the community had seemingly taken pity on me and made an extra effort to include me. Mostly, it seemed these people were the ones who were apart of Rick’s original group, excluding Aaron and Eric, which honestly wasn’t too surprising. They had all been in the same position as me at one point; the only difference was that they had had each other, while I was utterly alone.

“Wendy, did you hear what I said?” Rosita spoke, pulling back into the present with an irritable tone.

“What— Oh, uh, no sorry. What did you say?” I turn to her apologetically as we continue pushing the cart of weapons back to the armory. I had been helping her restock the ammunition at each guard post before our shift at the gate started.

Over the course of a few days, Rosita and I had begun talking more outside of our guard duties together. I made the effort to make conversation out of commitment to my promise to Aaron at first, but I genuinely enjoyed talking to her now. We were similar in a lot of ways, and yet completely different in others. We both had the same sharp tongue and impulsive tendencies, but I was far less confident in myself than she was. It seemed to me like Rosita was the type of person to never bother second-guessing herself because it took too much time and she didn’t really care enough to weigh the risks of a situation. She made split-second decisions and stuck with them, then she’d deal with the consequences later. As for myself, I was no stranger to making split-second decisions also, but only if I knew the consequences wouldn’t directly affect me.

Our conversations were never really that deep, mostly I let Rosita talk about what was currently pissing her off; the most recent of which being the heatwave that had garnered much of the same reaction from everyone else. I was never one for pointless chitchat, but it was interesting to hear more about Rick and ‘his group’ as she was one of the thirteen that had shown up at the gate with them. I never got much more than a sentence about any of them, but it all added to the constantly growing picture in my mind.

I wasn’t entirely certain why Rosita had bothered to actively involve herself with me, and it wasn’t likely that I would ever know. She was a hard person to read, and despite being rather blunt and open about what she thought, there were times where it seemed like her thoughts ran far deeper than her temper let on. Even as she stared at me in that moment, I could see by the expression on her face that she was consciously mulling over something. She slowly started to speak again.

“Look, I’m gonna say this in the nicest way possible, but you look like shit.” She said, gesturing to my slouched posture and tired expression. I let out a small laugh.

“Yeah, I know.” I agree as we come to a stop. “I haven’t really been sleeping well.” I admit, running a hand over my eyes. She eyes me for another second before letting out a sigh.

“Just go home, try get some sleep.” She tells me, dragging the cart again.

“But we have the gate shift in a few minutes.” I try to protest, putting my hands back on the cart and helping her move it.

“I’ll cover it.” She says simply, then after a pause she adds. “Besides, it’s not like you’ll be any help to anyone if you pass out on the job.”

I open my mouth to protest some more but she gives me a warning look and I promptly decide to let it go. “Okay… Thanks.” I say quietly, losing my will to fight as I feel the exhaustion grow at the mention of sleep. Not that I thought I’d actually be able to get any.

“Don’t mention it.” She shrugs as pulls the cart back into the armory and out of sight.

I slowly begin my walk back to where I’d been staying, feeling all the muscles in my body aching as I did. The day had barely begun and yet I felt as though I had been awake for days. Maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth, how much sleep had I gotten last night? Perhaps two hours at a push? It’s not like I wasn’t tired either, but every time I placed my head on my pillow my eyes refused to close for more than a few seconds and my body couldn’t remain still.

As I entered the living room of the house I had come to call ‘mine’, I felt my legs practically give way beneath me and I fell down onto the couch. It seemed as though my body could only sacrifice enough energy to get me here and had now promptly given up. I would have liked to of slept in my own bed, but already I could feel my limbs become heavy at the prospect of sleep, there was no way in hell I would be able to convince myself to climb all the way up the stairs at this point. Instead, I kicked off my shoes with a grunt and fell back against the cushions. The living room windows were open, letting in what little breeze nature was kind enough to provide in the sweltering heat. The cream curtains billowed slightly as the air hit them. I watch in a trance like state, my eyelids growing heavy, and yet sleep still didn’t come to retrieve my exhausted mind. I forced my eyes shut and listened to the sounds of the trees outside; the birds flying above us and the people going about their everyday lives within the walls of the community. I heard the sounds of kids laughing followed by fast footsteps against asphalt.

My eyes opened again, only to be met by a wall of cream-colored fabric that clouded my vision. The sun shining in from behind it making it unbelievably bright to look at. I squinted and tried to block the light with my arm, but it was persistent. The noises around me grew louder, birds no longer sang but bellowed harsh tunes that made my ears ache, the wind become violent, rushing through the trees with a screeching whistling noise and the kid’s laughter from before turned into screams. I wanted to see what was going on, but my entire body felt as though it had been strapped down to the couch, my limbs turned to lead and my head spinning with even the slightest of movements.

Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

The screaming continued while the wind got more forceful. My ears become hot and I could feel the heat spread across my body. All I could see was the blinding bright white of the curtains that obstructed my view of what was going on outside. My heart raced inside my chest as my palms began to sweat. I felt completely powerless, unable to move as the noises continued to assault my ears. Kids. Definitely kids screaming. I tried to move again and this time—

I fell against the hard, wooden flooring with a loud _thud._ My ears rang with the impact and my head span in circles for a moment as I tried to regain my vision. Slowly I was able to push myself up on one hand and as I did, I realized that the sounds had stopped. I rubbed the back of my head in a daze, wondering what had happened and why it had all stopped so suddenly.

The wind was soft once more, making the curtains shift slightly as the air blew through the open window, the birds chirped happily above the community, and the soft chatter of people outside filled my ears. Kids laughing, not screaming.

I tried to shift my weight onto my left hand, forgetting about my injury. The pain was immediate and immense making me curse under my breathe as I felt the throbbing return. A cold sweat enveloped me as my pulse pounded in my head. Nothing made sense. The only thing that I knew was for certain was the nauseous feeling that climbed its way into my stomach. I grabbed onto the side of the couch and pulled myself up on shaky legs, leaning on anything in my path as I made my way to the bathroom. Even at my slow-crawl pace, I could feel my head getting light as black dots blotted my vision. Breathing was hard, walking was harder, and I slumped down against the bath tub as soon as I got into the bathroom. The tiles were cool against my burning skin, but inwardly I was freezing cold and they made me shiver.

I could feel the bile rise in my throat as the nausea became more than just a feeling. I fell in on myself, retching and choking as my eyes began to sting with the promise of tears. I gasped for air, feeling my chest tighten with the force of my body rejecting anything and everything I had consumed that day. My hair stuck to my skin, slick with sweat and uncomfortable warm yet I was still shivering. I rested my back against the cooling tiles and curled my knees up to my chest. Everything hurt and my vision was nothing but a blur now, but I couldn’t tell if this was because of the tears that were forced over my waterline, or something else entirely.

My breathing became raspy as suddenly I heard a door open. A muffled voice called out to me, but I couldn’t make out who it was in my daze. They continued to call, their tone becoming more and more concerned as I failed to answer each time. I couldn’t speak, my throat was too sore from the retching, all I could do was lay there, feeling the sensation of hopelessness overcome me as my body refused all commands to fight against whatever had invaded my system.

The muffled footsteps became louder as a pair of shoes came into view.

“Wendy!” I could make out the words they spoke now as they knelt down beside me. “Are you okay— Is this blood? What happened?” Aaron’s face came into view as he attempted to pull me up. I could feel my eyelids growing heavy as he moved me, but I looked down at the floor and saw that he was right. A dark red liquid was smeared across the white tiles beneath me and had began pooling next to my arm.

_Am I bleeding?_

He managed to pull me into a sitting position against the bathtub again, but I could feel my head lulling as he checked me over. “God, you’re burning up.”

I could feel his hands against my skin, ice-cold compared to the heat my own body was radiating and yet I was still shivering as if I was trapped out in the middle of a snowstorm. I wanted to say something, but I suddenly felt as though all the energy I had left was drained from my body, leaving me unable to even keep my eyes open.

“I’m going to go get help. Don’t try to move, just stay here okay?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, standing and leaving the room with haste.

_No, please don’t leave._

The words bounced around my head, unable to find their way to my tongue and out into the air. My mind could barely keep up with what was going on around me now, but I heard the door open and close once more. I knew I was alone again. A sudden fear tugged at my nerves; Am I going to die here? Completely alone? The part of me that was still rational knew that help was already coming, but the raw fear that took ahold of my deluded mind was more powerful than any resolve I had left.

That fear drove me as I used what strength I had left to push myself off the floor, gripping onto the shower curtains to try and support myself, desperate to do something – anything – to save myself. I stumbled forwards and held out my left hand to catch myself on the doorframe before I fell. When I pulled my hand back again there was red smeared across the white painted wood. The pain knocked me to the floor again as I fell out of the bathroom and into the hallway. I could feel the blood trickling down my arm now, hot and sticky as I lay on the floor again. And this time I knew I wouldn’t be getting back up.

My breathing shallowed as I tried to pull myself a little further down the hallway. The pain that seared my hand was spreading to my arm, then even my chest. I could feel my heart burn while my vision blurred again. Tears pricked my eyes as the pounding in my head became worse. I scrunched my eyes shut. I just wanted it all to stop, but when I opened them again, black dots clouded my vision and took over my line of sight as I felt myself fall into unconsciousness. My body gave up its fight and I felt my limbs go slack against the wooden flooring then… nothing.

The pain didn’t disappear, but a numbness overtook me as I lay there helplessly. It was strangely peaceful, like my mind was shutting itself off for the first time in weeks. I felt… content.

The only thing that indicated to me that I was still alive was the fact that I could hear. Everything was muffled and had a sort of echo to it, but I could definitely hear. I heard footsteps approaching, and then voices though I had no idea what they were saying – my brain didn’t care enough to try and decipher the syllables into actual words. I just knew they were there, and they were talking. Something like thankfulness washed over me as I realized I wasn’t alone anymore.

I heard the ruffling of fabric as someone tried to move me, then the floor was gone from underneath me and a pair of arms gripped my skin. They lifted me up and moved me carefully. Soon I could feel the heat of the sun on my face and a slight breeze hitting my skin. It was like I was weightless in that moment; a bird drifting through the air as the wind carried me along. And I could see it, too. The open sky in front of me and the wisps of cloud that brushed past me as I flew, higher and higher. But this euphoric sensation didn’t last long and soon I found myself crashing back down to earth as my stomach lurched into my throat. I was choking, suffocating, gasping for breath as I braced myself for the impact of the solid ground that never came.

❊

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out, it was a pain to write idk why and I'm still not entirely happy with it.   
> But, I'm back at college now so update will most likely be sparse again.   
> Thank you so much for sticking with me despite my lack of schedule!


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